Enable or Disable Ctrl or Cmd + Mouse Wheel Zoom in Firefox on macOS
In newer versions of Mozilla Firefox (version 109 and later), the default action of Ctrl+Mouse Wheel or Cmd+Mouse Wheel on macOS has been changed from zooming to page scrolling. If you want to restore Ctrl or Cmd + Mouse Wheel action to page zoom again in your Mac device, this article will help you.
In older versions of Firefox on macOS, when a user pressed and held the Ctrl or Command key and used the mouse wheel or trackpad, Firefox used to zoom in or out the current page. But in Firefox 109 and later versions, this default action has been changed.
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Now if a mac user uses the mouse wheel or trackpad while pressing and holding Ctrl or Cmd key, Firefox scrolls the current page instead of changing the zoom level. This change has been implemented to avoid accidental zooming. Other web browsers on macOS also follow the same behavior.
Although the change has been made to assist users and prevent unwanted zooming but many Firefox users are not liking this change. Many Firefox users on macOS want to restore the default zooming functionality back.
Fortunately, Firefox comes with a hidden secret preference/flag to customize or change Ctrl or Cmd + Mouse wheel or trackpad functionality on macOS.
You can modify this preference to enable or disable default zoom functionality in Firefox on your mac device.
Following steps will help you in customizing default action of Ctrl+Mouse wheel or Cmd+Mouse wheel in Firefox:
1. Open Firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “Accept the Risk and Continue” button. It’ll open Firefox’s hidden secret advanced configuration page i.e. about:config page.
2. Now type mousewheel.with in Search filter box and look for following preferences in the window:
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mousewheel.with_control.action
mousewheel.with_meta.action
The mousewheel.with_control.action decides the default behavior of Ctrl+Mouse wheel or trackpad shortcut.
The mousewheel.with_meta.action decides the default behavior of Cmd+Mouse wheel or trackpad shortcut.
You can change values of both preferences to as following according to your requirements:
0 – to completely disable or turn off the feature. Nothing will happen.
1 – to scroll the page
2 – to go back or forward in page history
3 – to zoom the page
So if you want to restore the previous action “Page zooming”, set the value of both preferences to 3 and if you want to change the action to “Page scrolling”, set the value of both preferences to 1 and if you want to completely disable the functionality, set the value of both preferences to 0.
To change the preference value, double-click on the preference and type the new value in the text box and press Enter.
That’s it. After changing the value, try to use Ctrl or Cmd + Mouse wheel or trackpad and you’ll get the desired functionality back.
Also Check:
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I cannot understand how firefox team decided to change this so old behaviour like this, not caring about users…
Just a huge THANK YOU for posting this! I’ve restored the old setting. And as John II says, it’s mystifying they would make this change.
Thank you!
I’m with John II on this – why, why would anybody decide to disable this? You can zoom in/out without needing to put your hands down from a mouse (to reach numpad).
Also this is so important it deserves its place in regular settings without need to fish this out in config.
i am as perplexed as John and Rob for the Devs possible reasoning; but THANK YOU, you came through to keep us zooming!! THANKS!!
Firefox release notes list this change: “On macOS, Ctrl or Cmd + trackpad or mouse wheel now scrolls the page instead of zooming. This avoids accidental zooming and matches the behavior of other web browsers on macOS.”
True, neither Safari nor Chrome have the feature to scroll with the mouse wheel. But I still liked what Firefox had, and I even installed the QuickZoom extension in Chrome to have the same.
When I did this it zooms the whole screen, not just inside the Firefox tab. Until recently when I command+mouse wheel, it would actually resize everything up or down inside the Firefox tab, so the text got bigger, images got bigger but it didn’t zoom my whole screen in like it does now. Before I could still see and use the menu bar, search bar etc without having to maneuver around a zoomed in screen. This is so annoying, I used that feature so much and now I have lost it with no idea how to get it back! Help!
Vishal, thank you for the high-quality explanation! The Firefox mousewheeel.with_control.action restored mouse wheel zoom using Control.
As a bonus, Control + 2-finger mousepad works too.
Thanks for providing quality information in a internet increasingly cluttered with bad explanations and popup ads.
thank you for taking the time to write this. Awesome
Thanks for this article. What a quirky thing to change! I use Firefox Developer Edition for coding work on the latest MacOS and your article resolved my frustration.
Really appreciate this article, thanks!
Fun fact, the “mousewheel.with_control.action” preference has even more modes:
– 4 – to scroll the page horizontally
– 5 – enables pinch to zoom (like on a laptop trackpad, or with fingers on a phone) using a mouse
(Tested on Firefox 122 on Windows)
Thanks!
Thank you!