Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

osx lion - how do I go back one page using a gesture?

  • 16 ŋuɖoɖowo
  • 376 masɔmasɔ sia le wosi
  • 1 view
  • Nuɖoɖo mlɔetɔ garbells

more options

2-fingered swipe used to go backward or forward in Mac Snow Leopard, but it doesn't work now that I moved to Lion.

2-fingered swipe used to go backward or forward in Mac Snow Leopard, but it doesn't work now that I moved to Lion.

All Replies (16)

more options

System preferences -> Trackpad -> More gestures

Make sure "Swipe between pages" is checked, and you can change the gesture in the drop down box to what you want it to be.

more options

Thanks for your suggestion but that doesn't seem to work. That was the first place that I went to look and everything was checked. Just doesn't work but it does work in Safari.

more options

If you are lucky Firefox may become more compatible with Lion, the tech guys know about the problem, but I am not sure what they are doing.

Keep an eye on other threads for any news e.g.

more options

That's odd...I've been using Firefox, and it works for me. Did you change the options in the dropdown box in the Swipe between pages box? (see picture)

more options

@ejhutch9125 ... What version of FF are you using? And you're on os X 10.7 ?

more options

Firefox 5.0.1, OS X 10.7, 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 Macbook Pro

more options

Did you guys also change the swipe between full-screen apps option to be something other than "swipe with three fingers"? I don't know if that makes a difference, but just a thought...

more options

@ejhutch9125 I have that selected. It only works with Safari not FireFox...Bummer. But I think they are working on it and we will be good to go soon.

more options

Ok I figured it out! You have to go to system preferences

  • Select Trackpad
  • Make sure that swipe between pages is selected
  • Underneath Swipe between pages will be a drop down menu(by default this is set to "Scroll left or right with 2 fingers" Change this to either of the other 2 choices, You will now be able to use it like you could before in snow leopard, KEEP IN MIND that you have to use 3 fingers to navigate foward and backward between pages
more options

I note changes are being made in Firefox 8 relating to Lion. I do not have any further info at the moment, maybe others have seen postings about it.

more options

I probably should have mentioned that I was on an imac versus a laptop and was using a magic mouse. I have now moved to a track pad and everything works as described above. Thanks for the help.

more options

I followed the suggestions and got 3-finger swipe to work in Firefox BUT the default Firefox config works "backwards" from the way two-finger swipe works in Safari. If this bothers you, you can reverse the action by going to "about:config" and exchanging the commands for the "browser.gesture.swipe.left & .right" commands. After restarting Firefox they will now work in the same direction (albeit 3 versus 2 fingers) as Safari.

As someone else mentioned, this does interact with the "3-finger drag" (which I don't have enabled) and the "swipe between full-screen apps" (which I changed to 4-finger) gestures.

more options

Sure it works to the expense of many features you cant be without. If i enable the "three finger swipe" i can navigate in firefox but then "three finger drag" gets disabled. Apple made some crazy thing here in my opinion. Without the drag you cant move windows, select files , select text using gesture and that is a huge irritation for me atleast. I hope Firefox team can solve this one in a good way while i have drag window enabled.

more options

So any confirmation from Mozilla that this will be fixed? I mean seriously this is one of the major features in OSX and it is so annoying that i even consider using safari as my main browser. You use this feature all the time as well as selecting text so both must be supported. I know you can enable this but then i have to sacrifice moving windows and selecting text which is even worse.

more options

I am not sure there seems to be much interest in this subject /forums/contributors/707160 but there is at least a partial workaround for some problems.

more options

I agree that using Safari as your main browser is a very poor choice. If you are a die hard fan of firefox, switch to chrome. They have have OSX lion gestures built in to their latest release. Maybe firefox will acknowledge this problem if enough people switch to chrome. And google chrome is a pretty competent browser in my opinion.