Back in the glory days of Snow Leopard , three - fingerbreadth trackpad swipes could help oneself you navigate the Finder : A three - finger’s breadth swipe left took you back one whole step in your Finder navigation ; three fingers in good order fetch you forrad again . In Lion , of course , three - finger swipe do a very unlike function — they navigate between space . ( you could modify that gesture to a four - fingerbreadth swipe in the Trackpad pane of System Preferences ; note also that if you enable three - finger retarding force , then Lion enables four - finger’s breadth swiping automatically . ) Hints readerrbroughdiscovered an challenging way to restore Snow Leopard ’s old behavior on an as - require base .

The caper ? Hold down the Option headstone while you perform your swipe . That suppresses the quad - switching gesture , and lets the old Snow Leopard functionality shine through .

And here ’s the good part : The Option - swipe trick does n’t just forge for navigate Finder window . Back when I ran Snow Leopard , I loved using three - finger swipe to navigate the prescribed Twitter app ; when I declare down Option and swipe , I get those motion of old back again .

The choice antic works in Safari , too : Hold down the Francis Scott Key while you swipe with three finger , and you may navigate back and ahead through Sir Frederick Handley Page you ’ve call in . And the Option swipe works differently from Lion ’s default option inverse two - fingerbreadth swiping in Safari — it follows the Snow Leopard approaching where swiping to the left hand go back one page .

It ’s worth experiment with the alternative - swipe . Many apps offer gesture that you may well discover by bring around . And of course , when you do make Lion filch discoveries , we ’d hump to hear about them .