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Is there any way to have Mac OS focus a window that I right-click on? It happens to me quite frequently that I right-click on something, choose "rename" or "create file" or what have you, need to type the filename and the keyboard input goes to another window, because Mac OS appears to switch focus only on a left-click.

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    Concrete example: Right-click on a background Pages document, select Create paragraph style from selection (a sheet dialog will appear) and you cannot start typing.
    – Daniel Beck ♦
    Commented Jun 11, 2011 at 6:05
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    Another common case for me is to create a new tab in Safari, when out of focus. The tab gets created but you can't type the URL because you are still out of focus. This seems to be an issue (bug?) that can be fixed with the next Mac OS X Release... But what can be the side effects of this issue being fixed? Is it really an issue or deliberate feature?
    – Arko
    Commented Jun 15, 2011 at 8:57
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    Yes, that is the kind of thing that is bugging me so much. I take it this means that there is no solution?
    – Steven Don
    Commented Jun 15, 2011 at 9:40
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    9 years and still a problem :(
    – David Lozzi
    Commented Jun 12, 2020 at 18:58
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    The issue is mainly when opening new Tab in Chrome by right clicking and then the cursor appears. When we start typing, it goes to the other window. Its definitely a bug. How can it open new tab, but can't type?
    – Surjith S M
    Commented Sep 3, 2021 at 12:26

4 Answers 4

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Having the same problem as OP, I found a solution today:

BetterTouchTool (45 days of free trial, licenses from $6.50) can assign multiple actions to a gesture.

Image showing gesture config

  1. Depending on your mouse setup, choose a trigger. I use a MagicMouse, so I chose '1 Finger Tap Right'.
  2. Choose 'Activate/Bring to Front Window Under Cursor'
  3. 'Click Add Additional Action'
  4. Choose 'Right Click'

Now BetterTouchTool will first activate the window under cursor, then dispatch a right click to it. Seems to work just fine on the Applications I tested it on.

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Try control-clicking. What happens? (Different apps behave differently with this--Finder being a notable exception.)

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  • It somewhat works for me. The window gets focus, and the context menu opens, but I cannot release the mouse button or the context menu will close; so I have to keep it pressed down, and release over the desired menu entry to select it. But other than that, it works quite well.
    – Daniel Beck ♦
    Commented Jun 13, 2011 at 11:17
  • That seems to behave a bit too erratically per app (and sometimes even inside the same app) to be useful.
    – Steven Don
    Commented Jun 14, 2011 at 13:03
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There is no way to have focus follow right-click across all apps on Mac OS X.

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You could use MondoMouse ($14.95, trial available), which supports Focus Follows Mouse.

Or from OS X: Point-to-Focus?

To enable sloppy focus do:

for just Terminal windows:

% defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse

-string YES

for X11 windows:

% defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true

for most other Mac apps:

use Codetek Virtual Desktop
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    Close, but "focus follows pointer" is a bit too much for what I need. What I'm looking for is still click-to-focus, but not just on left-click, also on right (and middle) click.
    – Steven Don
    Commented Jun 14, 2011 at 13:08
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    All too often I find myself typing after right clicking another window and see that nothing is typed in the window I right clicked on, because it did not receive focus on the right click. Also I think that it's too much that a window gets the focus just by hovering over it with the pointer.
    – Chris
    Commented Sep 21, 2015 at 10:27

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