As technology becomes more and more innovative, it is becoming standard practice for designers and manufacturers to integrate elements from a diverse range of hardware into their own products. Such is the case with the various one- and two-finger commands you can execute on your laptop’s touchpad. Given that most of us use smartphones on an hourly basis, it makes sense that laptops should be designed to carry some of the same functionality we expect from our phones.
On PC’s running Windows 10, one such feature is the ability to ‘pinch zoom’ by placing two fingers on the PC’s trackpad and moving them either apart or together, to zoom-in or zoom-out accordingly. As innovative as the feature is, however, it can also become quite frustrating, if you are either unaware of it, and trigger it accidentally, or use your touchpad a lot, and find that you can often end up zooming in and out of a page without wanting to.
This article explains exactly how to disable the pinch-zoom option in Windows 10, in just a few simple steps. Check out the FAQs below for additional information.
Table of Contents
How to Disable the Pinch Zoom Option in Windows 10
- On your Windows 10 PC, navigate to the Windows Start Menu, and select Settings. You can do this either by pressing the Windows Logo and ‘X’ together on your keyboard, then clicking on Settings; or by clicking the Windows Menu Logo in the bottom-left of your screen, and then clicking the cog-shaped Settings icon.
- From the Settings menu locate and click on Devices (which may read as ‘Hardware’ depending on your particular version of Windows 10. Either way, you’re looking for the option to do with mouses, printers, and Bluetooth).
- From the Devices submenu, in the left-hand sidebar, locate and click on Touchpad and then under this next submenu, select Additional settings (if there is no ‘touchpad’ specific submenu, look for ‘mouse’, and under this submenu select ‘Advanced’ or ‘Additional’ settings).
- Under the Mouse Properties pop-up window, scroll to the last tab, labeled Clickpad Settings or Device Settings
- From here, click the Clickpad Settings or Settings button.
- Next, locate the box next to ‘Pinch Zoom’ and untick this box.
- To finalize the changes, click Apply and then OK.
- You have successfully disabled the pinch zoom option in Windows 10.
And there you have it! As simple as following the above steps, 1 through 7, you can disable pinch zoom on your Windows 10 device and ensure that never again will you be frustrated to discover you have unwittingly or accidentally changed the screen size of your device.
Frequently Asked Questions
If I disable Pinch Zoom, do I also disable my ability to zoom in general?
Thankfully, no. Disabling Pinch Zoom in Windows 10 does not mean that you are then unable to zoom at all on your device. Zooming in and out of pages – especially those on the web, where the size of text changes dramatically depending upon the page and its designer – can be really helpful, especially if you struggle to read small text, or wish to enlarge an image, say.
In order to zoom without using the Pinch Zoom functionality of the trackpad, you can simply use your keyboard. Hold CTRL and press either ‘+’ or ‘-’ (depending on whether you wish to zoom in or out, respectively). Doing so will enlarge or shrink the size of the web page you are currently on (and only that page), in increments of 10%, 25%, 50%, and so on.
Alternatively, you can alter the default zoom settings of your Windows 10 device (so that the size of all pages, windows, and your desktop are uniformly altered), by visiting your Settings > System (or Display) > Display > Scale and Layout > Advanced Scale and Layout Options > and then inputting a percentage scale between 100% and 500%, in order to enlarge your display across all supporting platforms.
Is disabling Pinch Zoom a permanent choice?
No. You can re-enable the Pinch Zoom option in Windows 10 by following steps 1-7 above, but this time ticking the Pinch Zoom option, rather than unticking it.
