To keep natural scrolling on your Mac trackpad while reversing a mouse wheel, use a utility with separate device controls. Scroll Reverser is a free option: leave natural scrolling enabled in macOS, then reverse the mouse only.
This is the setup for someone who likes moving a webpage directly with two fingers, but expects a conventional wheel mouse to scroll the other way. You should not need to change settings every time you move your hand.
Documentation checked October 4, 2026. Hardware behavior below is based on developer documentation; we have not run a mouse compatibility benchmark.
Bottom line
In Scroll Reverser, enable mouse reversal and leave trackpad reversal off. Keep macOS natural scrolling on. Test one webpage with each device before changing acceleration or other scrolling settings.
On this page
Set the trackpad first, then the mouse
Start in System Settings → Trackpad → Scroll & Zoom and enable Natural scrolling if that is how you want the trackpad to behave. Apple documents the trackpad controls in its settings guide.
Then get Scroll Reverser from Pilotmoon’s official site, move it into Applications, and open it. The listed 1.9 release requires macOS 13.5 or later and supports Intel and Apple silicon.
In its settings, enable reversal, keep Reverse mouse on, and turn Reverse trackpad off. Grant the Accessibility permission needed to control input. This is the developer’s recommended arrangement for a natural trackpad and a conventional mouse wheel. Setup and requirements
Change only the vertical direction initially. Keeping horizontal behavior unchanged makes it easier to tell which setting fixed the problem.
Use one page to check both devices
Open a long webpage and stop halfway down. Try the trackpad, then the mouse, without changing apps. This gives you a common reference instead of comparing two applications with different scrolling behavior.
| Check | What you want to establish |
|---|---|
| Trackpad, two-finger vertical scroll | Your preferred natural direction still works |
| Mouse, vertical wheel | Only the wheel direction has changed |
| Horizontal scrolling | Sideways movement still behaves as intended |
| Mouse disconnected, then reconnected | The arrangement survives switching devices |
| After logging in again | The utility starts when you expect it to |
If the direction is right but movement feels too fast, treat that as a separate adjustment. Change one variable at a time; otherwise a direction fix can become an unnecessary search through acceleration settings.
If both devices reverse, or neither does
Check for two utilities controlling the same input. Mouse vendor software, another scroll reverser, and a mouse customization tool can overlap. Quit one temporarily and repeat the same-page check. You do not have to uninstall everything to identify a conflict.
If the enable control does nothing, confirm the app is in Applications and revisit its Accessibility permission. Pilotmoon recommends removing and re-adding its permission entry if necessary, then relaunching the app.
If the trackpad is detected as a mouse, check whether an Accessibility zoom gesture is involved. The developer documents that interaction and also notes limitations with some external trackpads. Its FAQ explains why iPhone Mirroring and Calendar gestures may not respond like ordinary scroll events. Troubleshooting notes
A Magic Mouse deserves its own check: its touch surface is different from a notched wheel. Don’t assume a result measured with a USB wheel mouse tells you how every mouse will behave.
Return to the starting behavior
Quit Scroll Reverser and test again. If you want to remove it, move the application to the Trash; the developer describes it as a self-contained app. Keep the system’s natural-scrolling setting wherever you prefer it.
The useful outcome is simple: the trackpad feels right, the mouse feels right, and moving between them no longer requires a trip to System Settings.
