How to deselect using box select?

Question

How do I deselect using the box select tool? I have read about middle mouse button and some other shortcuts but they don't work for me.

I use to have a mouse with a scroll wheel, but it had no middle mouse click. This might be your issue. — CharlesL, Jul 18 '13 at 13:35
@CharlesL I do have middle mouse click. I can move the camera with it. — jobukkit, Jul 18 '13 at 13:38
Are you middle mouse clicking and dragging? You have to hold down middle mouse the entire time. — CharlesL, Jul 18 '13 at 13:40
Does your deselect work when you use Circle Select (C) and the middle mouse button? — SteveW, Jul 18 '13 at 21:53
Remember not to hold down the B for box selecting. You press and release B and you enter a box selection mode... and from there you should be able to deselect with MMB. — Fweeb, Jul 19 '13 at 12:47
Just press A dude :) I mean you have to press it a few times but it does deselect ;) — Calin, Feb 14 '17 at 09:55

score 31 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 18 '13 at 15:07

31

If using v2.68 (revision 57577+), you can do the following:

Press B,
Use LMB and drag to form the (de)selection rectangle,
hold down Shift while releasing LMB.

Demonstration of the above steps.

edited Jul 18 '13 at 15:07

Aldrik

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answered Jul 18 '13 at 10:28

zeffii

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Didn't work. It just selected – jobukkit Jul 18 '13 at 10:48
I am trying to select some faces after selecting. Instead of that, it selects other vertices that are also in the box. It doesn't deselect anything. – jobukkit Jul 18 '13 at 11:00
please update your Question with more information then. – zeffii Jul 18 '13 at 11:01
OOPS I meant deselect instead of select in my other comment – jobukkit Jul 18 '13 at 11:06
i'm not sure why that doesn't work for you guys, I use it frequently. (i'm still on build r57660, 2.67.1) – zeffii Jul 18 '13 at 11:51
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Works for me, even when I don't have Emulate 3 Button Mouse set. – CharlesL Jul 18 '13 at 13:42
works for me, too. (With and without Emulate 3 button Mouse) – gandalf3 Jul 18 '13 at 19:44
Is there a better way to do this yet? – Arrow_Raider Jun 07 '21 at 15:26
This doesn't seem to work in Blender 3.1. – Aaron Franke May 09 '22 at 00:37

CharlesL · Answer 2 · 2013-07-18T14:33:23.133

It sounds like your issue is an issue with the middle mouse button on your mouse. The following steps do not require a working middle mouse button to deselect:

Go to your user preferences (CtrlAltU)
Go to the Input tab
In the left sidebar, check the Emulate 3 Button Mouse checkbox
Whenever instructions say to use the middle mouse button, you can now use Alt + Left Click instead.

To use box select to deselect use Alt + Left Click and drag.

Aldrik · Answer 3 · 2013-07-18T11:39:06.300

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As described on the Blender wiki:

B to enter border selection.
Drag the deselection rectangular using your middle mouse button.

edited Jul 18 '13 at 11:39

answered Jul 18 '13 at 10:54

Aldrik

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Thanks, but middle mouse button doesn't work, I already said that in the question. – jobukkit Jul 18 '13 at 11:00
@Jop It does here. I thought it unlikely that you had found a bug and suspected you were just doing it wrong. – Aldrik Jul 18 '13 at 11:05
@jop, you'll have to use alt instead. Go to your user prefs, go to input and check "Emulate 3 button mouse". Then replace alt-left click for middle click. – CharlesL Jul 18 '13 at 12:51
At the time of writing this comment, this answer worked by default for the latest Blender version of the time. – Herpes Free Engineer May 30 '19 at 09:52

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 22 '21 at 06:49

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I found that the easies solution is to just invert the selection and afterwards invert it again. This works with all selection tools and you just need to press Ctrl-I

answered Aug 22 '21 at 06:49

Ralf

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How to deselect using box select?

4 Answers4

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