diff --git a/macos/Sources/Ghostty/SurfaceView_AppKit.swift b/macos/Sources/Ghostty/SurfaceView_AppKit.swift
index f04bf1af3..301ef5a9b 100644
--- a/macos/Sources/Ghostty/SurfaceView_AppKit.swift
+++ b/macos/Sources/Ghostty/SurfaceView_AppKit.swift
@@ -201,7 +201,14 @@ extension Ghostty {
             self.eventMonitor = NSEvent.addLocalMonitorForEvents(
                 matching: [
                     // We need keyUp because command+key events don't trigger keyUp.
-                    .keyUp
+                    .keyUp,
+
+                    // We need leftMouseDown to determine if we should focus ourselves
+                    // when the app/window isn't in focus. We do this instead of
+                    // "acceptsFirstMouse" because that forces us to also handle the
+                    // event and encode the event to the pty which we want to avoid.
+                    // (Issue 2595)
+                    .leftMouseDown,
                 ]
             ) { [weak self] event in self?.localEventHandler(event) }
 
@@ -450,11 +457,40 @@ extension Ghostty {
             case .keyUp:
                 localEventKeyUp(event)
 
+            case .leftMouseDown:
+                localEventLeftMouseDown(event)
+
             default:
                 event
             }
         }
 
+        private func localEventLeftMouseDown(_ event: NSEvent) -> NSEvent? {
+            // We only want to process events that are on this window.
+            guard let window,
+                  event.window != nil,
+                  window == event.window else { return event }
+
+            // The clicked location in this window should be this view.
+            let location = convert(event.locationInWindow, from: nil)
+            guard hitTest(location) == self else { return event }
+
+            // We only want to grab focus if either our app or window was
+            // not focused.
+            guard !NSApp.isActive || !window.isKeyWindow else { return event }
+
+            // If we're already focused we do nothing
+            guard !focused else { return event }
+
+            // Make ourselves the first responder
+            window.makeFirstResponder(self)
+
+            // We have to keep processing the event so that AppKit can properly
+            // focus the window and dispatch events. If you return nil here then
+            // nobody gets a windowDidBecomeKey event and so on.
+            return event
+        }
+
         private func localEventKeyUp(_ event: NSEvent) -> NSEvent? {
             // We only care about events with "command" because all others will
             // trigger the normal responder chain.
@@ -620,14 +656,6 @@ extension Ghostty {
             ghostty_surface_draw(surface);
         }
 
-        override func acceptsFirstMouse(for event: NSEvent?) -> Bool {
-            // "Override this method in a subclass to allow instances to respond to
-            // click-through. This allows the user to click on a view in an inactive
-            // window, activating the view with one click, instead of clicking first
-            // to make the window active and then clicking the view."
-            return true
-        }
-
         override func mouseDown(with event: NSEvent) {
             guard let surface = self.surface else { return }
             let mods = Ghostty.ghosttyMods(event.modifierFlags)