Use gestures on touchpads and touchscreens

Multitouch gestures can be used on touchpads and touchscreens for system navigation, as well as in applications.

A number of applications make use of gestures. In Document Viewer, documents can be zoomed and swiped with gestures, and Image Viewer allows you to zoom, rotate and pan.

System-wide gestures

Open the Activities Overview and Applications View

Place three fingers on the touchpad or touchscreen and gesture upwards to open the Activities Overview.

To open the Applications View, place three fingers and gesture upwards again.

Switch Workspace

Place three fingers on the touchpad or touchscreen and gesture left or right.

Exit from fullscreen

On a touchscreen, drag down from the top edge to exit from the fullscreen mode of any window.

Bring up the on-screen keyboard

On a touchscreen, drag up from the bottom edge to bring up the on-screen keyboard, if the on-screen keyboard is enabled.

Bring down the system menu

Slide down from the top right edge.

Application gestures

Open an item, launch an application, play a song

Tap on an item.

Select an item and list actions that can be performed

Press and hold for a second or two.

Scroll the area on the screen

Drag: slide a finger touching the surface.

Change the zoom level of a view (Maps, Photos)

Two-finger pinch or stretch: Touch the surface with two fingers while bringing them closer or further apart.

Rotate a photo

Two-finger rotate: Touch the surface with two fingers and rotate.