Another take: the discussion shows that quite a lot Linux users use this feature because it makes them more productive. If that feature is hidden away new users will probably never find it. Linux is not the same as Windows (which is why people flock to it right now in the first place) and thus has a learning curve. And I think that's ok. We don't have to make it more like Windows, people have to learn how to use it.
this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026
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Like I kept surprising coworkers on windows with "witchcrafty" key combinations like ctrl+c, win+d, ctrl+s...? The middle clic paste would be roughtly as well hidden as those arcane shortcut. If users won't "discover" it, better not let them paste random stuff unknowingly at least.
My daily job is win+e alt+d ctrl+v lol. People look at me weird when I rapid fire them and get to a server location before they even right click copied the filepath.
And im not in IT or anything, always wanted to be though! Most People just dont have computer curiosity like us.
While I agree we dont need or want to make linux like windows, im VERY fast on mint cinnamon because all the key combos and the gui make sense to me and it works.
I tried cachyos with xfce and I was horribly slow and clunky, had to use the mouse for everything vs mint I already knew all the key commands.
Honestly don't know why people are up in arms and even posting about it. They aren't saying they are removing the capability, just the default. Big whoop.
I'm guessing, those people are worried that it will be removed. It's already somewhat on the line since Wayland started replacing X11, because individual desktop environments can now decide to implement it or not.
It's Gnome. They do actually keep removing stuff that they disable by default, because they don't even offer a GUI to configure these settings.
Yeah, I accidentally posted an early draft of my furry midget vore age regression erotica novel I was working with on a discord channel and I caused the death of several fellow men due to dehydration as such is the magnitude of my writing. I wished these souls didn't weight on me so harshly but I keep moving forward as progress doesn't have ethics. A minute of silence for my wankers.
It's been middle click paste since the 70s 80s maybe, so that you could do copy paste ad hoc without altering your clipboard content.
What might be better than turning it off is a onboarding screen that shows you how it works and you test it while the install completes.
What might be better than turning it off is a onboarding screen that shows you how it works and you test it while the install completes.
There's a million more important things it could show you instead
Basic GUI interaction is paramount, the rest can be documentation
I was under the assumption it was so you could copy/paste in the terminal. Highlight to copy, middle click to paste. Ctrl+c / ctrl+v are used by other things in the terminal already.
I think that is originally how it was used because GUI apps were less prevalent. But there is also Ctrl+Shift+C/V for terminal copy paste. And in Vi you have Y for yank and p and P for put. So many clipboards😱
do copy paste ad hoc without altering your clipboard content.
Thing is modern clipboard managers like the one on kde server and equivalent purpose.
Oh I agree, but most windows users I know don't even realize they have a clipboard manager for history pasting. So may not even be looking for that.
But from a UI perspective select text and middle click is just way less key strokes and fluid.
I've been using Linux off and on for decades, full time for over a year now, and only now learned this was a thing after I distro hopped to CachyOS and kept accidentally middle clicking on my laptop's trackpad and getting shit pasted everywhere. I had to look up how to disable it because it was so annoying. I generally only middle click in web browsers for auto scroll and that's extremely rare.
Is this not a thing in Windows? It's such a wonderful convenience, and I swear I've always used it, but I guess I haven't touched Windows in well over a decade at this point, so I can't say I remember.
It's not in windows. It's also something that nearly every new user iv helped and taught to use Linux over the like 3 years has removeded about. And iv helped hundreds.
It's been a pretty disliked feature for as long as I can remember for new users. I remember seeing it pop up rather frequently even back in ye olden times of fourms asking how to turn it off.
It's just one of those old school things that people are use to so no one's ever really questioned it. And being Linux there's always been ways to turn off the feature.
Frankly Iv thought it should be disabled by default for like the last decade now. It's a nice option but it does really make very little sense.
M3 is for panning and having it play double duty as a secondary clipboard is annoying.
No, what actually makes sense is a proper unification of different copy/paste buffers that is nowadays still mostly improvised and only achieved through very different 3rd party tools (for me using the panel from xfce it's xfce4-clipman for example that keeps highlighting text and middle-click buffers synchronised with ctrl-c/ctrl-v or ctrl-insert/shift-insert...).
The problem is not accidently pasting something with a middle-click, but not knowing what is in one buffer, what is in another one and which one a program is using.
Having the buffers separate is useful because you can have two different things copied at the same time.
yeah, I use it all the time to copy username and password in one go instead of fiddling with the clipboard history
This is remedied for me by the clipboard history in the system tray in KDE. I can have a lot of things in my clipboard and access any one of them whenever I want
Sure, there is a usecase for this. But sperate buffers and varying (and often unintuitive) behavior of software and which buffer is used how is a much bigger hurdle for people not used to it than that "middle-click pasting is confusing" bullshit...
It is very easy to understand.
We should empower new users and show them better ways.
"New users" as you describe them don't even know that the mouse wheel can be clicked at all. The only thing to be fixed is consistency with Ctrl-C clipboard.
Grimly: “year of the linux desktop”
I'd be happier if they just fix whatever breaks click highlighting in the terminal. I hate that shit and I think it's accidentally attempting to paste via Ctrl-V that does it so F my habitual ass.
No it doesn’t, because middle-click paste doesn’t interfere with any other function. There’s no downside to having it.
My mom kept accidently pressing the mouse button, I could never figure it out why, when I was watching I guess shed be conscious and use it properly, but complain later that things get pasted randomly. After I disabled middle click, she hasn't complained.
I'll also admit that I've been struggling to figure out why when I middle mouse click to open a new tab, that it opens a new tab that searches what was previously on my clipboard. It never occurred to me that middle click pasted outside of the terminal until I started seeing posts about the Firefox news
That’s not a problem with middle click paste, that’s a problem with Firefox. If you hit ctrl+v in Firefox does it search for whatever is in your clipboard? No, so why should it do that when you paste by mouse click?
... I actually like being able to copy a website and middle clicking to open it. I don't think it's a problem, it just needs to be telegraphed to the user better, and togleable.
I think pasting directly into “search and go” if you middle click in a browser is certifiably insane.
Maybe acceptable as “paste and go” if it recognizes the clipboard contents as a valid URL.
Meh, I actively use it. I get why it might be unintuitive to someone newly switching.
Is this why I can't middle-mouse scroll in chromium browsers (works on Firefox based) on Bazzite? I've used Linux for over a decade (although mostly without a DE on servers until a couple of years ago) and I've never realised middle-mouse pastes.
It definitely should be left off by default.
No, middle click paste has nothing to do with middle mouse scroll, or middle click open-in-new-window. They're independent functions, and all 3 can work together just fine. Disabling middle click paste has absolutely no upside that I can think of. Unless they're going to replace middle click paste with something more useful, I don't understand this push.
He means panning. The fact you didn't understand that kinda highlights the very problem at hand.
Middle mouse scrolling is both the mouse wheel for up and down and for panning. The copy paste function breaks panning in some situations which is very annoying and inconsistent
I've never had to look for disabling middle click paste because it broke panning or orbiting in 2d or 3d canvas. Same thing for games, middle click works just fine there.
I only use a few applications where middle click panning makes sense, and it works fine, middle click paste has no effect. If some applications don't handle panning properly, that's a bug in those applications. Why on earth should we disable a useful feature system-wide so a couple buggy applications can get away with shoddy code?
From what I've read about the issue middle mouse click to paste overwrites normal expected behaviour in some applications, and is exactly the issue I'm having. What's wrong with Ctrl+V? It's universally known and beloved. Is it a "one hand below the desk"-issue?
From what I’ve read about the issue middle mouse click to paste overwrites normal expected behaviour in some applications
Applications can override the behavior. I have several applications I use on a daily basis that use the middle mouse for panning and they work fine. If other applications don't, that's their own fault. Forcing users to disable a useful feature system-wide so a couple lazy applications can get away with buggy code is not a reasonable solution.
It has to be the same everywhere.
I am on opensuse aeon and I don't care about the distro anymore. Same on atomic fedora.
Fedora can be used by noobs and pros, which setting should it be?
Most users don't even know that you can click on it because it doesn't look like a button. Touch screen doesn't have it.
But it should only be replaced with something more useful.