This is an attempt to compile the history of and the discussion around middle-mouse-click on Linux. I have tried my best to distance my own opinions on the matter and write solely the existing facts. The Linux UI community has a very bad habit of going to each other’s throats based on miscommunication or personality clashes. I hope that laying the basic inforation out will help blunt this, or at the very least serve as an interesting read.

History

Middle-mouse-click first appeared with the first modern mouse, the mouse prototype created by André Guignard and Jean-Daniel Nicoud at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. This mouse had three long buttons along the topside and looked very different from the modern mouse. Eventually, the scroll-wheel was created and the middle-button was incorporated into the wheel, but you can still find three-button mice today that do not have a button under the scroll-wheel.

The middle-mouse-click to paste first appeared in early versions of x11, in which there was an argument over whether handling the copy buffer should be a command or if it should be automatic. The compromise was to implement both, which created the options of ctrl + c / ctrl + v and middle-mouse-click to copy and paste.

The functionality of middle-mouse click differs depending on the operating system. While it is not the operating system itself that defines these, by convention the following patterns have arose:

  • Windows: Holding middle-mouse-click and moving the mouse scrolls the viewport, while clicking autoscrolls
  • MacOS: No standard as they have removed middle-mouse-button from their mice. Middle-click-paste still exists in the default MacOS terminal.
  • Linux: Middle-mouse-click either copys/pastes text or scrolls the viewport.
  • *BSD: Middle-mouse-click copys/pastes text, but Linux apps sometimes scroll.

As you can see, the UNIX-likes all have some form of middle-mouse-click clipboard management and Windows does its own thing. Linux has gained some Windows-isms through the porting of software or through developers not knowing the difference.

Discussion

The discussion of whether Linux should follow Windows in scrolling with middle-mouse-click has been a long and devisive one. I have tried my best to compile arguments for and against this change without adding my own.

middle-click-paste:

  • Has been in UNIX as long as x11 has.
  • Wayland integrated this, and thus it is not an x11-ism.
  • Users have had a lot of time to integrate this into their workflows.
  • An option to change this should be exposed to the user, not obfuscated.
  • Linux is not Windows, and thus should not integrate every UX decision.
  • Apps not following this is a bug and should be fixed.
  • Without proper communication of a change, users will assume a hardware error or a bug.

middle-click-scroll:

  • A common complaint users have coming to Linux is the differences in middle-click behavior.
  • This is a change that harms nobody, and there is an option to change it.
  • Fixes a lot of apps that scroll by making it the default.
  • Even MacOS accepted that middle-click-paste was a bad idea and users have gotten used to that.
  • Before wayland, there was no way to block middle-click-paste, leading to a lot of users getting very frustraited and finding hacky, insecure ways to get around this.
  • Can cause accidental dumping of sensitive information with a very simple misclick, while ctrl + c and ctrl + v requires actively pressing a key combination.

Sources

It seems that there aren’t many reputable sources on this matter and mostly just anecdotal evidence I find on random forums. This is bad and you should not cite this piece in any academic papers or arguments without assuring that you trust the author and the sources.

Inputs that Reignited Discussion

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gsettings-desktop-schemas/-/merge_requests/119 https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D277804 https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/07/gnome_middle_click_paste/

Articles and Forums

https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/discussions/1170 https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=248817 https://forum.artixlinux.org/index.php/topic,9111.msg54517.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29736877 https://superuser.com/questions/87470/copy-on-select-paste-on-middle-click-on-mac-os-x https://askubuntu.com/questions/225874/why-is-the-middle-button-mapped-to-pasting https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Mouse_buttons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_F%C3%A9d%C3%A9rale_de_Lausanne https://lifehacker.com/tech/middle-click-macbook-magic-trackpad-mouse-how-to