In macOS, Apple provides an iOS-style application drawer called “Launchpad.” To quickly access this grid of app icons, Apple mapped it to a specific Trackpad gesture: pinching your thumb and three fingers together on the glass surface.
While this is a convenient way to launch apps if you do not use the Dock or Spotlight, the gesture itself is highly problematic for power users. If you are using professional software that requires complex, multi-finger pinching or rotation (such as zooming out of a massive canvas in Photoshop, navigating a 3D model in Blender, or scrubbing a timeline in Final Cut Pro), macOS will frequently misinterpret your gesture as a “Launchpad pinch.” Suddenly, your application disappears, replaced by a massive grid of distracting app icons. If you prefer to launch your apps via the Command+Space (Spotlight) keyboard shortcut and want to reclaim your multi-finger gestures for creative software, you must completely disable the Launchpad pinch.
Disabling the Launchpad Gesture via Trackpad Settings
Apple allows you to safely turn off this specific pinch action directly from the Trackpad preference pane.
- Click the Apple Logo in the top-left corner of your Mac’s screen and select System Settings….
- Scroll down the left-hand navigation sidebar and click on Trackpad.
- In the main Trackpad panel, click on the More Gestures tab at the top.
- Look down the list of enabled gestures until you find the one labelled Launchpad.
- The dropdown menu next to it will likely say “Pinch with thumb and 3 fingers.”
- Click on that dropdown menu and select the Off option.
The change takes effect immediately without requiring a restart. Close the System Settings window and test it by placing four fingers on your trackpad and aggressively pinching them together. Nothing will happen. Your desktop will remain exactly where it is, guaranteeing that your complex multi-finger gestures inside creative applications will never again be interrupted by the iOS-style app drawer.