I would like to be able to assign a key on my keyboard to be equivalent to a left mouse click.
Ideally it needs to act such that holding the key down is also equivalent to holding the left mouse button down.
How can I do this?
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I'm almost positive you need to buy a new mouse. =P– NReilinghJun 10, 2011 at 21:56
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2OS X has limited options for simulating mouse clicks (applescript falls short in this department), but this might help you with the mouse click part: hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2008051406323031 --- After you edit it to your needs and compile, you'll need to bind that app to a hotkey in order to have a key press activate it, you can try something like Spark for that: macupdate.com/app/mac/14352/spark -- not sure about the holding the key down though– MaQleodJun 10, 2011 at 22:23
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In your Stack Overflow duplicate, you said you could also use a programmatic solution using AppleScript or Cocoa. Why not here?– slhckJun 10, 2011 at 22:24
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slhck - I didn't mention programmatic solution here because I was treating SuperUser as a user focused site. To be clear though - I am happy with a programmatic solution!– zadamJun 10, 2011 at 22:49
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4 Answers
You should be able to achieve this using BetterTouchTool. It's an app you'd have to install but it's free an has lots of other useful features. You can also choose to limit this functionality to a single application or use it globally.
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Yes, it's possible. In "Preferences" - "Keyboard" - "Add new shortcut", and in actions, select "leftclick".– slhckJun 10, 2011 at 22:56
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You can use OS X's Mouse Keys feature to use the keyboard to click the mouse. (It's an accessibility feature.) You can enable a keyboard shortcut to turn it on and off if you don't want to use the feature all the time.
With Mouse Keys, just use the number 5 (or the equivalent letter key I) to click. Pressing 0 or M will work for holding down the mouse button, and period will release.
For anyone trying to figure this out in 2017, then as Stacey Hanson wrote, OS X's Mouse Keys feature is a great way to go. From my playing around with it in masOS Sierra, the number 5 button on my numeric keyboard seems to work EXACTLY like the left mouse button does. I can hold it down and rotate the globe in Google maps satellite view - super helpful. Here's an updated link for accessing the feature: http://etc.usf.edu/techease/4all/input-devices/what-are-mouse-keys/
I solved this in macOS Sierra 10.12.6 using Karabiner Elements 11.6.0.
I remapped my Macbook function key to left click:
Under "Simple Modifications" From Key: fn (under "Modifier keys") To key: button1 (under "Mouse buttons")
