Very expensive scales: the Apple MacBook app allows you to weigh items up to 3.5 kg on the touchpad

Thanks to a free app, Apple Macbook touchpads can now weigh small objects.

There is good news for owners of MacBook Pro and MacBook Air that use the Haptic Touchpad. Now, in addition to direct purpose. They can be used to measure weight. This is thanks to sensors that can respond not only to touch but also to pressure.

The inventor of the additional function is Krish Shah from Canada. After analyzing the data on the degree of pressure and the reaction of the sensors to it, the developer turned the Apple touchpad into a scale for small objects. The result of his work is the TrackWeight program, which he distributes freely via GitHub.

The app has several limitations related to the technology:

• During weighing, the touchpad must be touched with a finger
• Objects should be small enough to fit on the manipulator area
• Electrically conductive objects may only be weighed if the electrical contact is completely blocked, e.g. with a piece of cloth.

Another inconvenience is that TrackWeight currently exists only as a program code that still needs to be compiled and run in Apple’s Xcode development environment. In addition, you will need to disable the sandbox mode in the settings.

You can turn your Mac trackpad into a weighing scale pic.twitter.com/KxbHrVfag3

— Krish Shah (@KrishRShah) July 21, 2025

According to Krish, his program already allows for fairly accurate weight measurement of objects, but it is still in experimental form and the results should be considered with some margin of error. He also notes that too heavy objects can damage the touchpad, so he does not recommend exceeding the weight of 3.5 kg.

Source: Notebookcheck