{"id":47441,"date":"2024-10-28T12:09:10","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T12:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/?p=47441"},"modified":"2025-12-08T07:00:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T07:00:25","slug":"disable-side-buttons-ubuntu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/2024\/10\/disable-side-buttons-ubuntu\/","title":{"rendered":"Disable Mouse Side Buttons in Ubuntu 24.04"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This tutorial shows how to disable your mouse forward\/backward buttons in Ubuntu. Though the title said for Ubuntu 24.04, this tutorial should also work in most modern Linux, such as Debian, Fedora, and Arch.<\/b><\/p>\n

Many mouses today have extra buttons on the side, allowing to navigate forward and back when working with web browsers, file explorers, etc applications.<\/p>\n

If you don’t like the side-buttons, like me, then you can disable them in Linux.<\/p>\n

Without using third-party apps (e.g., input-remapper<\/a>), here I’m going to show you how to do the job by creating an udev rule<\/a> that works in most Linux on both Xorg and Wayland sessions.<\/p>\n

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A Mouse with side buttons<\/p><\/div>\n

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Step 1: Find out scancodes of the Mouse buttons<\/h3>\n

When you press a button on mouse, it sends a scancode<\/b> to the computer. Then, your system maps the scancode to a virtual keycode<\/b>. By re-mapping the scancode<\/code> to reserved<\/code>, it will be ignored when you press on it.<\/p>\n

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T<\/code> to open up a terminal window. When it opens, run command:<\/p>\n

evtest<\/pre>\n
Or sudo evtest<\/code> if it cannot discover any of input devices.<\/p>\n
If command not found, run sudo apt install evtest<\/code> to install. And in the terminal output, it will print all the available input devices.<\/p>\n
In my case, it’s a wireless keyboard connected through an USB receiver. As the screenshot below shows, it should be either \/dev\/input\/event6<\/code> or \/dev\/input\/event8<\/code>. Type either number 6 or 8 (you need to replace it accordingly), then continue.<\/p>\n
2. After typing the correct device event number and hitting Enter, it should print corresponding outputs in terminal window, when you moving and\/or pressing buttons on the mouse.<\/p>\n
Now, you need to press the side-buttons, and remember the value number (scancode) in terminal output.<\/p>\n
In my case, when I clicked on forward button, it output scancode 90005<\/b> and keycode BTN_EXTRA<\/b>. And, it output 90004<\/b> and BTN_SIDE<\/b> when backward button clicked.<\/p>\n
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Step 2: Get the ID of your mouse<\/h3>\n
After finding out the scancodes of side-buttons, you also need to find out the ID of the mouse, so you can tell Linux kernel which device to configure when writing the udev rule.<\/p>\n
This can be done by running a single command below in terminal:<\/p>\n
cat \/sys\/class\/input\/event6\/device\/modalias<\/pre>\n
Here you need to replace “event6” in command with yours device event number<\/b>, according to evtest<\/code> command in Step 1.<\/p>\n
In the output, you need to copy the input:b****v****p****e****<\/b> (input:b0003v089Dp062Fe0111<\/code> in my case). And,<\/p>\n
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