User Manual & Superpowers Guide

Everything you need to master your mouse on macOS Sonoma, Sequoia, and later. From ProMotion 120Hz deceleration physics to unistroke gestures and fractional window snapping.

Getting Started

1. Installation & Accessibility (TCC) Permissions

ApexMouse operates as a high-performance, native input layer for macOS 14 Sonoma, macOS 15 Sequoia, and later. To intercept mouse buttons and smooth scroll ticks without lag, macOS requires Accessibility permissions.

🎬 App Walkthrough: Quick tour of the unified settings interface, scroll physics, button maps, and gestures.

Three-Step Quick Setup

  1. Move to Applications: Drag ApexMouse.app directly into your Mac's /Applications directory before launching. This prevents macOS Gatekeeper App Translocation from randomizing execution paths.
  2. Launch & Follow Onboarding: On first launch, ApexMouse displays the interactive onboarding guide with an animated system settings demonstration.
  3. Grant Accessibility: Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and toggle ApexMouse to ON.
🛡️
Apple Signed & Notarized: ApexMouse is officially code-signed with an Apple Developer ID certificate and notarized directly by Apple. macOS Gatekeeper automatically validates its security ticket upon first launch with zero terminal commands or overrides required.

Resolving macOS "TCC Ghost Revocation"

In rare situations after a macOS system update or app bundle replacement, the macOS TCC security database may silently invalidate an app's event tap token even though the toggle in System Settings appears "On". ApexMouse includes an active Event Tap Liveness Monitor that detects this condition immediately.

To perform a 1-click clean reset of the accessibility trust cache, paste this in Terminal:

tccutil reset Accessibility com.apexmouse.ApexMouse

Alternatively, click Menu Bar → Help → Reset Event Engine or select Verify Permissions in Settings.

Scroll Physics

2. 120Hz ProMotion Scrolling & Physics Studio

Standard USB and Bluetooth mice send discrete, stepped ratchet notches (often 3 to 5 lines per notch), creating jarring visual stutter on high-refresh-rate Mac screens. ApexMouse replaces stepped ratchets with high-frequency CVDisplayLink continuous frame interpolation.

Curated Feel Presets

  • Natural: Balanced kinetic inertia closely matching the Apple Magic Trackpad feel.
  • Silky: Ultra-fluid cubic deceleration curve with prolonged, gentle coasting.
  • Snappy: Immediate responsiveness with a crisp, low-latency brake point.
  • Momentum: Extended high-velocity flick expansion for skimming through thousands of lines of code.

Configurable Physics Controls

  • Duration: Controls the total frame lifetime of the deceleration coast (10 to 60 frames).
  • Brake Point: Easing curve midpoint (0.1 to 0.9) determining how abruptly coasting settles.
  • Dynamic Flick Coast: Scales coast duration up to 2.8× when spinning the wheel rapidly.
  • Stop on Move: Instantly halts ongoing scroll inertia as soon as the mouse is moved.

Scroll Modifier Multipliers

ApexMouse translates standard modifier keys into productivity gestures on the fly:

Modifier Chord Behavior Common Workflow
⇧ Shift + Wheel Converts vertical wheel movement into smooth horizontal panning Excel spreadsheets, Figma canvas, timeline editors
⌃ Control + Wheel Triggers smooth proportional viewport zoom Safari, Preview, Maps, Photoshop
⌘ Command + Wheel Applies turbo velocity multiplier (up to 4× speed) Navigating massive log files or codebases
Pointer Precision

3. Cursor Precision & 1:1 Linear Acceleration Bypass

By default, macOS forces an aggressive, non-linear velocity curve on external mice. If you move your mouse quickly across 2 inches, the cursor flies twice as far as when moved slowly over the same distance. For gamers, CAD designers, and 3D artists, this destroys muscular muscle memory.

1:1 Raw Linear Tracking

Toggling Disable Acceleration bypasses macOS pointer curves via direct IOKit integration (IOHIDSetAccelerationWithType), establishing strict 1:1 hardware synchronization with your mouse sensor.

Live 1000Hz Polling Telemetry

ApexMouse continuously reads hardware packet timestamps, displaying real-time sensor refresh rates (125Hz, 500Hz, 1000Hz, or 4000Hz/8000Hz esports mice) directly in the telemetry gauge.

Button Remapping

4. Button Remapping, 4-Way Drag & Scroll Chords

Reclaim extra buttons (Middle Click B2, Side Buttons B3/B4, and MMO/Macro Buttons B5–B8) without bloated background daemons. ApexMouse discriminates five distinct hardware interaction states per physical button.

Trigger Type Hardware Interaction Recommended Actions
Click Standard single press and release Back, Forward, Smart Zoom, Enter
Double Click Two clicks within threshold (default 280ms) Play / Pause, Close Active Tab, Lock Screen
Long Press Hold Button held down past threshold (default 320ms) Summon Radial Action Dial, Mission Control
4-Way Directional Drag Hold button and nudge mouse Left, Right, Up, or Down Switch Desktop Space ← / →, App Exposé, Show Desktop
Scroll Chord Hold button while rotating the scroll wheel Volume Up / Down, Display Brightness, Tab Cycling
🛡️
Left and Right Click Safety Principle: ApexMouse strictly never intercepts Primary (Left, Button 0) or Secondary (Right, Button 1) clicks in the CoreGraphics event tap. Primary clicks pass through 100% untouched to ensure zero click latency and eliminate system event stalls.
Mouse Gestures

5. Gesture Studio & Glowing Neon Ink Trails

Draw intuitive shapes anywhere on screen by holding a trigger button (Right Click, Middle Button, or Side Button). ApexMouse utilizes a high-speed $1 Unistroke geometric recognition engine to identify shapes regardless of size, speed, or drawing position.

13 Built-in Gesture Templates

Out of the box, ApexMouse recognizes: Directional Swipes (←, →, ↑, ↓), Corner Shapes (L, Reverse L), Checkmark (✓), Circles (CW / CCW), Z-Shape, U-Shape, and Triangle (▲).

Interactive Custom Studio: Click the gesture drawing canvas in Settings to record any freehand shape (Star, Alpha, Heart, or Custom Letter). Give it a custom name and map it to any macOS system action or keyboard macro.

✨
Instant Right-Click Preservation: When using Secondary Click as your gesture trigger, strokes under 10 points are classified as a standard click and immediately replayed with private magic tagging, preserving instant native context menus with zero delay.
Radial Dials & Snapping

6. Radial Action Dial & Loop Window Snapping

Eliminate hand gymnastics. Radial dials project circular palettes right at your cursor, letting muscle memory execute common commands in milliseconds.

8-Way Radial Action Dial

Hold your designated trigger to open an 8 to 12 slice circular dial. Flick toward any slice to trigger Mission Control, Screenshot, Clipboard, or app-specific shortcuts with zero cursor travel. Features built-in SF Symbol browser and liquid-glass frosted styling.

Loop-Style Radial Window Manager

Summon the snapping dial to divide your desktop into halves, quarters, or centered floats.

Wheel Fraction Cycling: Spin the scroll wheel while holding the dial to cycle window widths dynamically between 1/3 ↔ 1/2 ↔ 2/3. Includes edge/corner drag snapping with live frosted glass snap previews.

Smart Features

7. Magnetic Drop Shelf & Semantic Scrubbing

ApexMouse embeds intelligent contextual interactions directly into macOS:

🧲 Magnetic Drop Shelf

A temporary floating stash pocket anchored to your cursor. While dragging files in Finder, images from browsers, or text snippets, give the mouse a quick shake. The shelf appears under the pointer, letting you collect items across spaces and batch-drop them into Mail, Slack, or Terminal.

🎛️ Semantic Element Scrubbing

  • Menu Bar Volume & Brightness: Hover cursor over the macOS Menu Bar and scroll to adjust system volume; hold ⇧ Shift to adjust display brightness.
  • Browser Tab Cycling: Hover over the tab strip in Safari, Arc, Chrome, Brave, or VS Code and scroll slowly to cycle tabs 1-by-1 with zero overshoot.
  • Video Timeline Scrubbing: Hold ⌥ Option while hovering over YouTube, QuickTime, Netflix, or VLC to scrub playback smoothly.
Per-App Overrides

8. Per-App Profiles & Game/CAD Optimization

Every macOS application has unique requirements. ApexMouse allows configuring custom overrides across 5 distinct categories:

  1. Scroll Physics: Disable smoothing in games (Minecraft, CS:GO) or 3D software (Blender, Fusion 360) where discrete notches are needed for weapon switching or camera zoom.
  2. Cursor Speed & Linear Curve: Enforce 1:1 linear tracking in precision software.
  3. Button Mappings: Bind custom shortcuts for Figma (Space pan), Final Cut Pro (Blade), or Terminal.
  4. Radial Dial Presets: Automatically swap dial actions to match the active app.
  5. Function Keys (F1–F12): Map physical function keys conditionally per app.
Hardware Setup

9. Multi-Device Isolation & Hardware Compatibility

ApexMouse identifies pointing devices by IOKit Vendor and Product IDs (e.g. 0x05AC:0x0269), allowing granular, independent control:

MacBook Trackpad Auto-Bypass

Built-in MacBook trackpads and Magic Trackpads are automatically bypassed by the event tap engine, ensuring 100% native multi-touch gestures, fluid pinch-to-zoom, and natural inertia without interference.

Coexistence with Logitech & Razer

Logitech Options+: We recommend assigning mouse buttons to "Generic / Middle Button" or quitting Logi Options+ so ApexMouse handles remapping natively with 80MB lower RAM usage and zero input latency.

Razer Synapse: Save your DPI settings to the mouse's onboard memory, then quit Synapse.

Zero-PII Privacy

10. Anonymous Support IDs & Diagnostics

ApexMouse does not require accounts, logins, or cloud synchronization. Your configuration remains 100% local on your Mac.

🔒
Deterministic Anonymous Support ID: Displayed in Settings → System & Support (e.g. APEX-8E4C-9F10). It is derived locally with zero personal information, allowing you to request customer support and diagnostic help with complete privacy.
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