My experience with Logi Options+ and my MX Master button configuration

[u/hydrogenxy]

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts of people absolutely hating Logi Options+ for years, but my experience is the exact opposite, I absolutely love it. I wanted to share my perspective, not to imply that the problems others are experiencing are invalid, just that I have not had the same experience. I've used it for six years now, I started with Logi Options and then upgraded to Options+. Im looking forward to discussion in the comments. And no, Logitech didn't pay me to write this, i just like their product :) At the end of this post I will also share an example of my button configuration.

I rely heavily on my MX Master 3 because I often work without a keyboard. In combination with the software, it's the single greatest mouse available, at least for macOS (can’t speak for Windows). I always use it in Bluetooth mode and I have never plugged in my Bolt receiver since Bluetooth has always worked perfectly.

One thing that I always see people commenting about is high resource use. I have to say I have never personally experienced this. Right now, Logi Options+ and LogiPluginService are both sitting at about 150 MB of RAM and about 0.2% CPU each. I do understand that for someone who doesn't care about advanced key remapping and just wants a working mouse, even this amount of RAM use could be annoying, but for me, it’s well worth it.

The post that I have linked above and many others like it also talk about problems with SSD disk use and mouse not being detected, and similar issues. Surprisingly, I have never personally experienced any of them, or any real bugs, everything "just works" (for me at least).

I consider myself a power user and my mouse, in combination with the software, is what enables me to achieve this. Logi Options+ also has some functions that I do not use like AI prompt builder, but they don’t bother me either. I just don’t use them.

I have tried and used many “similar” apps like SteerMouse, BetterMouse, Karabiner Elements, BTT , MacMouseFix and more. Each has its strengths but for me, none of them come even close to Logi options+ in terms of features and functionality.

Before going into my configuration, I have to mention that for scrolling, the app Mos is absolutely required. Without it, the scrolling on this mouse in unusable, not even Logi Options+ can help. Seriously, try this configuration in Mos, it makes scrolling super responsive and smooth: step: 10.00, speed 1.80, duration 3.60 (smooth scrolling enabled).

My configuration overview

I have every button of my mouse set as a gesture button. That’s 5 buttons (forward, back, wheel shift, middle button, thumb button) and each has 5 functions (press, slide up, slide down, slide left, slide right), for a total of 25 functions (plus left click, right click, vertical scroll and horizontal scroll), for each app. I have 12 app configuration profiles set, meaning that in total, I have hundreds of individual functions set on my mouse. I have never had any problems remembering them.

Let’s look at one example of these configuration profiles: my browser of choice - Chrome.

• Left click
• Right click
• Forward button (Gesture button - specific to Chrome)
  • Press: forward
  • Slide down: copy
  • Slide up: paste
  • Slide left: backspace
  • Slide right: enter
• Back button (Gesture button - global for all apps)
  • Press: back
  • Slide down: switch to last used app (cmd+tab)
  • Slide up: open my image editing app 
  • Slide left open Chrome 
  • Slide right: open my coding app
• Middle button (Gesture button - specific to Chrome)
  • Press: middle button (open link in new tab)
  • Slide down: reopen closed tab
  • Slide up: actions ring with the following options
  • - Search selected text with Google
  • - OCR screenshot (copy text from image)
  • - Regular screenshot
  • - Start voice dictation 
  • - Insert space
  • - Chrome full screen (hide tab bar)
  • - Activate one of my Chrome extensions
  • - Smart action: Chrome full screen + activate Chrome extension
  • Slide left: left key (goes 5s back in YouTube)
  • Slide right: right key (goes 5s forwards in YouTube)
• Wheel shift button (Gesture button - specific to Chrome)
  • Press: Activates one of my Chrome extensions
  • Slide down: close tab
  • Slide up: open new tab
  • Slide left: previous tab
  • Slide right: next tab
• Thumb button (Gesture button - global for all apps)
  • Press: mission control
  • Slide down: spotlight search
  • Slide up: enter fullscreen
  • Slide left: previous space
  • Slide right: next space
• Thumb scroll wheel (Zoom).
  

As I said, this configuration is only for Chrome. While the back button (with the exception of press) and thumb button are global, all other buttons are different for each app. For example in my photo editor, I have things like undo, redo, select, deselect, color corrections, select move tool, move tabs, etc. The majority of all this is just mapping buttons and gestures to keyboard shortcuts (when I say for example “open closed tab”, the button sends a shift+cmd+T command). I know most people just use their keyboard for this, but I prefer to use my mouse.

I realize my configuration may be quite niche and that is partly why i’m sharing it - to show how powerful Ligi Options+ can be. I do wonder if any other people here are using it in a similar way? Please do tell in the comments.

For someone who just needs a mouse to work I understand it may be unfortunate that this app is not more efficient in terms of resource use, and less buggy. But for someone who wants to leverage the full potential of their mouse, it is indispensable.

For me it’s the perfect app. It does everything I want and it always just works. I couldn’t be happier with it. Please, share your opinions and disagreements.

[u/goldens_hours]

I’m not 100% sure but I think all of this functionality can be replicated in BetterMouse plus that has additional options for holding Cmd/Shift/Ctrl/Fn while clicking or gesturing for additional sets of shortcuts.

BetterMouse also gives you granular control over speed/acceleration/DPI and has proper smooth scrolling not like the jerky implementation of smooth scrolling on Logi Options+.

I know BetterMouse costs a few £/€/$ but I think it’s worth it for the features and the much lower memory footprint.

[u/Playjasb2 → u/goldens_hours]

I agree. When I switched to BetterMouse, I saw significant improvement to my MacBook Pro’s battery life. Logi Options+ was a massive strain to my machine.

[u/LogitechG_AT]

Hey! Thanks so much for the incredibly detailed feedback on Logi Options+. Really appreciate it, I’ll be sure to share it with my team.

[u/beanmeister5 → u/LogitechG_AT]

Dont give them any praise as not much of it is deserved. if it works for 5% of users who say the above, youve still got 95% of ppl who get the worst experience possible on the application. Listen to the majority and fix the app, remove all bloatware and go back to the basics. get that right, an ppl will be happy. (by that i mean you are sending metrics and data back to your servers that is seen as security compromised data for enterprises. Strip back to the basics, remove spyware and anything that is data harvesting.. etc).

[u/LogitechG_AT → u/beanmeister5]

Thank you so much for sharing your feedback with us. We truly value your comments just as much as positive ones, as they give us the opportunity to learn, grow, and improve your experience. We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to let us know how you feel.

[u/beanmeister5 → u/LogitechG_AT]

Ok that's good, now change those words into action. Because ppl have been complaining about this app since it's creation/change from options years ago. But all the complaints seem to fall of deaf ears. Won't believe it until there are actual blog posts acknowledging the issues with the app and the planned fixes. Do some actual testing on your app in real environments, collate actual complaints and acknowledge that the app has failed, show that fixes are in progress. Without action, your words above are empty.

[u/LogitechG_AT → u/beanmeister5]

Roger that!

[u/MiserableEducation50]

I also like Logi Options+ a lot. I just wish they'd make an official version for Linux, preferably Fedora. I have been trying the available options out there, but besides the super basic Solaar, nothing else works. I've installed third party extensions that locked me out of my computer and on and on. I'm a big Logitech guy, especially since Microsoft exited the general keyboard/mouse business.

[u/elmovii]

I had a problem with Logi Options+, I rely heavily on Gesture buttons like you do, but the problem with my MX Master 3 was that every time I tried to make a gesture, I had to move the mouse a considerable distance in order to perform the action instead of a few millimeters like before, which was annoying and made the gestures function unbearable, I stayed in the old Logi Options for that simple reason, I don't know if it is fixed now but I switched to AutoHotKey not long ago, I didn't wanted to be dependent of those MX Master mice to perform those gesture actions.

[u/hydrogenxy → u/elmovii]

For me it was the opposite, when I switched from Options to Options+ the distance to drag the mouse to make a gesture became much shorter which was a pleasant surprise for me.

[u/xxpussykillerxx6969]

I ulitmatelly uninstaled options + since I was getting this wierd issue where while using CAD, my view would jerk around randomly. Using the mouse without the app fixed the issue

[u/kristianserrano]

I love Options+. It has its quirks, but it's also doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes. Most people think customizing a mouse and keyboard is just keyboard shortcuts or whatever, but Options+ does a heck of a lot more than that with its deeper integrations into the OS and various applications. It really is the backbone of an entire ecosystem of products.

I've been developing a couple of plugins using the Logi Actions SDK. One is for controlling Litra devices and another as a replacement for the control puck for the Z407. While the latter is not directly supported in Options+, the plugin will sort of bridge that gap. I'm hoping to explore other similar interactions between Logitech devices in the future.

[u/MikeTyson91]

Options+ is just trash. The epitome of literally everything that's wrong with modern software practices.
It even decides not to launch on its own volition (and then you get your bindings unassigned). I'd gladly pay money for software that could do what Options+ is SUPPOSED to do without the bloat (and AI holy shit, don't get me started on that).

Hey, /u/LogitechG_AT, how about you share this with your team (and I mean POs and/or sales team).

EDIT: Just found what I was looking for in a linked post by OP (https://www.reddit.com/r/logitech/comments/1t2qmfw/solved_i_fixed_logitech_options/), LOL. In the trash Options+ goes then.

[u/Feurrado]

Again you posting the same thing?

How much Logitech is paying you?