MOUSED.CONF(5)

📦 version 15.1, in freebsd 15.1

🌸 NAME 🌸

okay so bestie, this is MOUSED.CONF(5) — the File Formats Manual page for moused.conf, aka the mouse daemon configuration file. It’s giving per-device mouse tuning, and honestly? iconic. 💅🐭

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

The moused.conf file specifies how moused(8) (the mouse daemon) should operate. It provides the ability to adjust certain mice parameters on a per-device basis. Slay. ✨

Configuration file format is derived from libinput(1) device quirk files. A file may contain multiple section headers ([some identifier]) followed by one or more MatchFoo=Bar directives, followed by at least one of MousedFoo=bar or AttrFoo=bar directive. A configuration file must contain at least one section, each section must have at least one ‘Match’ tag and at least one of either ‘Attr’ or ‘Moused’. Section names are free-form and may contain spaces. No cap. 🌈

✨ List of currently available matches. ✨

  • MatchName, MatchUniq — Match on the NAME or UNIQ udev property on this device. These properties are typically derived from the device’s kernel name or uniq. These matches use fnmatch() globs. Globby globs, yep. 🫶
  • MatchBus — A lower-case bus name. Currently supported are usb, bluetooth, ps2, rmi, i2c, and spi.
  • MatchVendor, MatchProduct, MatchVersion — The hexadecimal 4-digit vendor ID, product ID or driver version as exported, without a 0x prefix.
  • MatchDMIModalias, MatchDeviceTree — An fnmatch() glob for the DMI modalias or the DeviceTree compatible string.
  • MatchDevType — One of touchpad, mouse, pointingstick, keyboard, joystick, tablet, tablet-pad. Only touchpad and mouse types are supported. not the others, bestie! ⚠️

🎀 List of currently available Moused tags. 🎀

  • MousedGrabDevice — Only for evdev interface. Become the sole recipient of all incoming input events. This prevents other processes from getting input events on the device. Use -g option alternatively. main character energy: the device only talks to you. 👑
  • MousedIgnoreDevice — Ignore given device. blocked. unfollowed. no events for you. 💀
  • MousedClickThreshold — Set double click speed as the maximum interval in msec between button clicks. Without this option, the default value of 500 msec will be assumed. This option will have effect only on the cut and paste operations in the text mode console. The user program which is reading mouse data via sysmouse(4) will not be affected. Use -C option alternatively.
  • MousedEmulateThirdButton — Emulate the third (middle) button for 2-button mice. It is emulated by pressing the left and right physical buttons simultaneously. Use -3 option alternatively.
  • MousedEmulateThirdButtonTimeout — When the third button emulation is enabled (see above), the moused(8) utility waits MousedEmulateThirdButtonTimeout msec at most before deciding whether two buttons are being pressed simultaneously. The default timeout is 100 msec. Use -E option alternatively.
  • MousedLinearAccelX
  • MousedLinearAccelY
  • MousedLinearAccelZ — Accelerate or decelerate the mouse input. This is a linear acceleration only. Values less than 1.0 slow down movement, values greater than 1.0 speed it up. You can use the MousedLinearAccel and MousedExponentialAccel options at the same time to have the combined effect of linear and exponential acceleration. Use -a option alternatively.
  • MousedExponentialAccel
  • MousedExponentialOffset — Apply exponential (dynamic) acceleration to mouse movements: the faster you move the mouse, the more it will be accelerated. That means that small mouse movements are not accelerated, so they are still very accurate, while a faster movement will drive the pointer quickly across the screen. The MousedExponentialAccel value specifies the exponent, which is basically the amount of acceleration. Useful values are in the range 1.1 to 2.0, but it depends on your mouse hardware and your personal preference. A value of 1.0 means no exponential acceleration. A value of 2.0 means squared acceleration (i.e. if you move the mouse twice as fast, the pointer will move four times as fast on the screen). Values beyond 2.0 are possible but not recommended. A good value to start is probably 1.5. The optional MousedExponentialOffset value specifies the distance at which the acceleration begins. The default is 1.0, which means that the acceleration is applied to movements larger than one unit. If you specify a larger value, it takes more speed for the acceleration to kick in, i.e. the speed range for small and accurate movements is wider. Usually the default should be sufficient, but if you're not satisfied with the behaviour, try a value of 2.0. Note that the -A option interacts badly with the X server's own acceleration, which doesn't work very well anyway. Therefore it is recommended to switch it off if necessary: “xset m 1”. Use -A option alternatively. this is the spicy acceleration lore, fr fr. 🔥
  • MousedMapZAxis — Map Z axis (roller/wheel) movement to another axis or to virtual buttons. Not supported yet. Use -z option instead. not supported yet, so don’t come for me. 🙈
  • MousedVirtualScrollEnable — Enable “Virtual Scrolling”. With this option set, holding the middle mouse button down will cause motion to be interpreted as scrolling. Use the MousedVirtualScrollThreshold option to set the distance the mouse must move before the scrolling mode is activated and the MousedVirtualScrollSpeed option to set the scrolling speed. Use -V option alternatively.
  • MousedHorVirtualScrollEnable — Enable “Horizontal Virtual Scrolling”. With this option set, holding the middle mouse button down will cause motion to be interpreted as horizontal scrolling. Use the MousedVirtualScrollThreshold option to set the distance the mouse must move before the scrolling mode is activated and the MousedVirtualScrollSpeed option to set the scrolling speed. This option may be used with or without the MousedVirtualScrollEnable option. Use -H option alternatively.
  • MousedVirtualScrollSpeed= distance — When “Virtual Scrolling” is enabled, the MousedVirtualScrollSpeed option can be used to set the distance (in pixels) that the mouse must move before a scroll event is generated. This effectively controls the scrolling speed. The default distance is 2 pixels. Use -L option alternatively.
  • MousedVirtualScrollThreshold= distance — When “Virtual Scrolling” is enabled, the MousedVirtualScrollThreshold option can be used to set the distance (in pixels) that the mouse must move before the scrolling mode is activated. The default distance is 3 pixels. Use -U option alternatively.
  • MousedWMode= N — Make the physical button N act as the wheel mode button. While this button is pressed, X and Y axis movement is reported to be zero and the Y axis movement is mapped to Z axis. You may further map the Z axis movement to virtual buttons by the MousedMapZAxis tag. Use -w option alternatively. wheel mode: activated. button girlies rise. 🎡

🐭 List of currently available Moused mice specific tags. 🐭

  • MousedDriftTerminate
  • MousedDriftDistance
  • MousedDriftTime
  • MousedDriftAfter — Terminate drift. Use this option if mouse pointer slowly wanders when mouse is not moved. Movements up to MousedDriftDistance (for example 4) pixels (X+Y) in MousedDriftTime msec (default 500) are ignored, except during MousedDriftAfter msec (default 4000) since last real mouse movement. Use -T option alternatively. no more haunted cursor energy. 👻

🦋 List of currently available Moused touchpad specific tags. 🦋

  • MousedTwoFingerScroll — Enable two finger scrolling.
  • MousedNaturalScroll — Enable natural scrolling.
  • MousedThreeFingerDrag — Enable dragging with three fingers.
  • MousedSoftButton2X — Horizontal position of 2-nd softbutton left edge in percents. (0-disable)
  • MousedSoftButton3X — Horizontal position of 3-rd softbutton left edge in percents. (0-disable)
  • MousedSoftButtonsY — Vertical size of softbuttons area in percents. Use negative values to place softbutton area at top of touchpad.
  • MousedTapTimeout — Tap timeout in milliseconds
  • MousedTapPressureThreshold — Pressure threshold to detect tap.
  • MousedTapMaxDelta — Length of finger movement above which a tap is ignored measured in mm.
  • MousedTapholdTimeout — Maximum elapsed time between two taps to consider a tap-hold action.
  • MousedVScrollMinDelta — Minimum movement to consider virtual scrolling.
  • MousedVScrollHorArea — Area reserved for horizontal virtual scrolling in mm.
  • MousedVScrollVerArea — Area reserved for vertical virtual scrolling in mm. touchpad customization is self-care, actually. 🧚

🌈 List of currently available libinput-compatible tags. 🌈

  • AttrSizeHint — Hints at the width x height of the device in mm.
  • AttrTouchSizeRange — Not supported yet.
  • AttrPalmSizeThreshold — Maximum finger width to detect palm in mm.
  • AttrLidSwitchReliability — Not supported yet.
  • AttrKeyboardIntegration — Not supported yet.
  • AttrPointingStickIntegration — Not supported yet.
  • AttrTPKComboLayout — Not supported yet.
  • AttrPressureRange= N: M — Specifies the touch pressure required to trigger a press N and to trigger a release M.
  • AttrPalmPressureThreshold — Maximum pressure to detect palm.
  • AttrResolutionHint — Hints at the resolution of the x/y axis in units/mm.
  • AttrTrackpointMultiplier — Not supported yet.
  • AttrThumbPressureThreshold — Not supported yet.
  • AttrUseVelocityAveraging — Not supported yet.
  • AttrTabletSmoothing — Not supported yet.
  • AttrThumbSizeThreshold — Not supported yet.
  • AttrMscTimestamp — Not supported yet.
  • AttrEventCode — Enables or disables the evdev event type/code tuples on the device. The prefix for each entry is either + (enable) or - (disable). Entries may be a named event type, or a named event code, or a named event type with a hexadecimal event code, separated by a single colon. event-code girlies, this one’s for you. 🎀
  • AttrInputProp — this one flips the evdev input property on the device on or off, no in-between. Every entry starts with a prefix: + means enable, - means disable. After the prefix you can drop in either a named input property or the hexadecimal value of that property. That's it, that's the whole vibe. 💅
Heads up bestie: all libinput(1) Model quirks are currently ignored. Not "handled differently", not "partially supported" — ignored. So don't come crying to me when your Model quirk does absolutely nothing, okay? 😭

📁 FILES 🎀

  • /usr/local/etc/moused.conf — the file moused.conf resides in /usr/local/etc. That's its home, its little apartment, its whole address. 🏠
  • /usr/local/share/moused/*.quirks — predefined quirks that get processed before moused.conf. So these show up first, do their thing, and then your own config gets its turn. Order matters, iykyk. ✨

🌸 EXAMPLES 🌸

Okay so picture this: you've got a PS/2 Synaptics touchpad and you want to set the touch pressure and palm detection thresholds. Here's exactly how that looks, no cap:

[SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad]
MatchDevType=touchpad
MatchName=SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad
AttrPressureRange=35:30
AttrPalmPressureThreshold=220

Look at her go. Section header, match on device type, match on name, two attributes, done. Iconic behaviour, honestly. 👑

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

The moused.conf file format first appeared in FreeBSD 15.0. So she's a 15.0 baby — young, but she's already got a whole manual page. We love a rising star. ⭐

🫶 AUTHORS 🫶

This manual page was written by Vladimir Kondratyev <wulf@FreeBSD.org>, based on the moused(8) manual page and libinput(1) documentation. Shoutout Vladimir, thank you for your service. 🙏

Debian, May 19, 2025 — that's when this beauty of a page was published, from the Debian fam. Slap a MOUSED.CONF(5) on it and call it a day fr fr. 💖
📦 where this page comes from
  • freebsd 15.1: base 15.1
  • 📜 the page's license: BSD-2-Clause
  • Copyright (c) 2025 Vladimir Kondratyev <wulf@FreeBSD.org>
  • 💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms