This online touchpad test tracks what your browser actually receives from your trackpad: live cursor position, clicks, two-finger scroll in both directions, and pinch-to-zoom gestures. It also reads navigator.maxTouchPoints, the browser value that reports how many simultaneous touch points your hardware supports. Move your finger over the pad below and every signal updates in real time, which makes it easy to confirm a trackpad is tracking smoothly before you blame an app for feeling unresponsive.
A laptop trackpad does not send raw touch data to the browser the way a touchscreen does. The operating system driver translates finger movement into standard pointer and mouse events, and translates two-finger gestures into wheel events, so this test reads the same signals any web page can see: pointer position, button state, and wheel deltas. That is also why the pointer type reported below usually says mouse rather than touch, even though you are using a trackpad. It reflects how the input reaches the browser, not a fault in the test.
Two-finger scrolling on a trackpad fires wheel events with both a vertical delta and a horizontal delta, so this test tracks them separately, which is the easiest way to confirm your trackpad supports horizontal swipe scrolling and not just vertical. Pinch-to-zoom is trickier to detect consistently: Chrome and Edge report a trackpad pinch as a wheel event with the Ctrl key flag set, even though you never touched a keyboard, while Safari fires its own proprietary gesture events. This test listens for both patterns, so a pinch should register as a gesture in either browser family.
Everything is read directly from standard browser input events and nothing is sent anywhere; closing the tab discards all of it immediately. Because this test relies on what the operating system reports to the browser, results reflect your OS trackpad driver as much as the physical hardware. If a gesture works in your system settings panel but not here, or the other way around, that points to a difference between the driver and how the browser interprets its output rather than a hardware fault.
How this test works
This test reads Pointer Events, which is the modern unified model covering mouse, pen and touch, together with wheel events for two-finger scrolling and navigator.maxTouchPoints for the reported touch capability. Pinch is detected from the wheel event with the control key flag that browsers use to signal a pinch gesture on a trackpad, and on Safari from its gesture events. Everything shown is what the browser was handed by the driver, which is why a trackpad usually identifies itself as a mouse.
How to use the touchpad test
- Move your finger across the pad below and watch the position marker follow it.
- Click and, if your trackpad supports it, two-finger tap to test the right-click.
- Scroll with two fingers, in all four directions, to check the wheel deltas.
- Pinch in and out with two fingers to test for a detected zoom gesture.
- Check the max touch points value to see how many simultaneous touches your hardware reports.
Reference tables
These are server-rendered, so they are readable without running the test and quotable without running any JavaScript. Where a figure comes from a specification it is cited under the table; where it is our own judgement, the table says so.
| What it measures | What it cannot see |
|---|---|
| Pointer movement, clicks, two-finger scroll and pinch gestures | Whether the driver or the hardware is responsible when a gesture does not arrive |
| navigator.maxTouchPoints, the number of simultaneous touches the browser reports | The panel's true multi-touch ceiling if the driver reports a lower number |
| The pointerType the browser assigns (mouse, pen or touch) | Anything about the physical sensor: many trackpads deliberately present themselves as a mouse |
| Horizontal scroll deltas when the driver sends them | Distinguishing a trackpad that cannot scroll horizontally from a driver that has it switched off |
Compiled by MyGearCheck from the browser APIs each test uses. Every limit listed here is a limit of the browser, not of your hardware.
| pointerType | Means | On a laptop trackpad |
|---|---|---|
| mouse | A mouse or a device presenting itself as one | This is the normal answer. Most trackpads are exposed to the browser as a mouse. |
| touch | A touchscreen or a touch-capable surface | You see this on a touchscreen laptop, usually not from the trackpad itself. |
| pen | A stylus or pen digitiser | Only from a pen-capable screen or drawing tablet. |
Values defined by the W3C Pointer Events specification. This is the single most misunderstood reading on this page: a trackpad reporting mouse is normal and is not a sign that anything is broken.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the pointer type say mouse instead of touch?
Trackpads are translated into standard mouse and pointer events by the operating system driver before they reach the browser, so pointerType almost always reports mouse for a trackpad. Only a touchscreen you touch directly, not a trackpad, typically reports pointerType touch.
The pinch gesture is not detected. Is my trackpad broken?
Not necessarily. Pinch detection depends on your browser: Chrome and Edge report it through a wheel event with the Ctrl key flag, Safari uses its own gesture events, and some other browsers do not expose a pinch signal to web pages at all. Try the pinch in the operating system's own trackpad settings panel to confirm the gesture itself works before assuming a hardware fault.
What does max touch points mean?
It is the navigator.maxTouchPoints value your browser reports, which is the maximum number of simultaneous touch contacts your hardware and driver support. A value of 0 is normal for most laptop trackpads, since they report through mouse events rather than touch events; touchscreens typically report a higher number.
Why does horizontal scroll show zero?
Some trackpads and some operating system settings do not enable horizontal two-finger scrolling by default. Try swiping left and right rather than up and down, and check your system trackpad settings if the horizontal delta never moves.
Does this test work on a phone or tablet?
Yes, and it is the most useful test on this site for a touchscreen: movement, taps, multi-touch and pinch all register. On a touchscreen the pointer type reads touch rather than mouse, which is the opposite of what a laptop trackpad reports.
Why does my trackpad click register as a normal mouse click?
Because that is what it is, as far as the browser is concerned. A physical or haptic trackpad click is delivered as a pointer event exactly like a mouse button, so the test cannot distinguish them and does not pretend to.
Can this test tell me if my trackpad drivers are out of date?
No. It can show you the symptom that usually accompanies a missing manufacturer driver, which is working movement and clicks with no gestures at all, but the version is not something a web page can read.
Why does the pointer jump while I am typing?
That is palm rejection either working or misfiring. If movement dies during typing and returns a moment later, the sensitivity setting is too aggressive rather than the pad being faulty.
Guides for this test
The test shows you what is happening. These explain what to do about it.
More hardware tests
The closest tests to this one are the rest of the input devices group. Working through a whole machine instead? The full check runs everything in order and ends in one report.
Everything else in the suite: