The Mid Click vs MiddleClick
MiddleClick is a free, open-source menu bar app that has given Mac users three-finger middle click for years. The Mid Click was built as a replacement after MiddleClick started crashing on macOS 27. Here's an honest comparison.
| The Mid Click | MiddleClick | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | 7-day trial, then $1/year or $10 lifetime | Free, open source (MIT) |
| How it reads touches | Public macOS APIs: gesture events from a CGEvent tap and NSEvent touch data | Apple's private MultitouchSupport framework |
| Stability on macOS 27 | Built and tested on it | Crashes in our testing (see below) |
| Tap and click modes | Both, switchable in the window | Both, via a setting |
| Three or four fingers | Both | Both |
| Interface | Window with a live test pad showing which button was received | Menu bar menu, no window |
| Launch at login | Optional switch, off by default | Optional |
| Distribution | Notarized download, auto-updates planned | GitHub releases, Homebrew |
What happened on macOS 27
- Tested
- MiddleClick 3.3.0 and The Mid Click 1.0
- System
- macOS 27.0 (build 26A428), MacBook Pro with Apple M5 Pro, built-in trackpad
- Date
- September 2026
- Observed
- MiddleClick terminated with
EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)inMultitouchSupport, frameMTAlg_IssueContactFrameCallbacks→mt_ProcessMultitouchFrame, on the framework's own thread (mt_ThreadedMTEntry)
MiddleClick reads finger positions through MultitouchSupport.framework, a private Apple framework with no stability guarantees; its source links the framework directly. On the system above it crashed intermittently, typically after sleep or when a trackpad connected or disconnected. Because the app isn't a login item by default, each crash leaves you without middle click until you notice and relaunch it. The crash is inside Apple's framework rather than MiddleClick's own code, so a newer MiddleClick release may or may not avoid it; check its releases page before deciding.
Why The Mid Click uses public APIs
Instead of the private framework, The Mid Click listens to the gesture events macOS already delivers through a CGEvent tap and reads the touches with NSEvent.allTouches(), which Apple documents. Those APIs are what Apple's own frameworks use, so an OS update is far less likely to break them. The trade-off is that the public gesture stream gives slightly less detail than the private one; for counting fingers and spotting a tap, it's enough. Here's the full mechanism.
Which should you use?
- MiddleClick if it runs stably on your macOS version, you're comfortable with GitHub or Homebrew, and you'd rather not pay. It's a good tool and the reason this category exists.
- The Mid Click if you're on macOS 26 or 27, want something that stays running, like seeing what the trackpad is doing, or want a maintained app with support behind it.
Don't run both at once; you'll get two middle clicks per tap.