6 Fun and Surprising Ways to Improve Your Mac’s Pointer

Believe it or not, your Mac’s cursor—or pointer comes with many customization features.
6 Fun and Surprising Ways to Improve Your Macs Pointer Credit: Creative icon styles / Shutterstock
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Believe it or not, your Mac’s cursor—or pointer comes with many customization features. 

You can change your cursor’s look to make it more your style or increase its size so it’s easier to see. You can even change the way you scroll when browsing the web or reading on your Mac.

Likewise, it also comes with a lot of accessibility features, so everyone can still control their Mac’s cursor, even without a mouse. 

The best part is that it’ll only take you a few clicks to customize it the way you want it. There are many things you can change, so we’ll only give you the basics for you to start customizing it. 

Whether you call it a cursor or a pointer, here’s how you can customize it on your Mac. 

How to Change Your Pointer’s Color

Changing the color of your pointer is an easy way to make it stand out on your Mac’s screen, which will make it a lot easier to spot it when you need to. Plus, you can personalize it and use your favorite colors. 

  1. Click on the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen. 
  2. Click on System Preferences.
  3. Select Accessibility.
  4. Click Display on the left side menu. 
  5. Click the Pointer tab.
  6. Change the Pointer outline color and the Pointer color to whatever you’d like, and it’ll change automatically.

Now you have a cool-looking pointer but if you decide you don’t like it and want to go back to the original, just click on Reset

Change the Pointer Size of your Mac

Another great way to spot the pointer instantly is to change its size to whatever you feel more comfortable with. Here’s how you can do it.

  1. Click on the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen.
  2. Select System preferences.
  3. Click on Accessibility.
  4. Click Display located on the left side menu.
  5. Click the Pointer tab at the top of the window. 
  6. Under Pointer Size, drag the slider to make it bigger. 

If you want to go back to the default settings, just drag the slider all the way to the left to its original size. 

Make Your Pointer Larger by Shaking It

A pretty neat trick not everyone knows about is that you can shake your pointer, and it’ll become bigger. This is meant to help you spot it on your screen. If you want to enable or disable this feature, you can do so by following these steps:

  1. Click on the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen.
  2. Click on System Preferences.
  3. Select Accessibility.
  4. Click Display on the left side menu.
  5. Click on the Pointer tab at the top of the window. 
  6. Click Shake mouse pointer to locate to enable or disable this feature. 

Now, all you need to do is shake your mouse or quickly move your pointer with your Trackpad, and the pointer will start to become larger and easier to see on your screen. 

Change Your Scrolling Speed

If you feel like your scrolling speed is too fast or slow, you can change it at any time on your Mac. Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Click the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen.
  2. Select System Preferences.
  3. Click on Accessbility.
  4. Click Pointer Control on the left side menu. 
  5. Depending on what you use, click on Trackpad Options or Mouse Options.
  6. Use the slider to change the scrolling speed to whatever feels right for you. 
  7. Click on OK when you’re done. 

If you use the Trackpad, you can also make it, so you don’t scroll with inertia. This basically means that when inertia is on, the page will keep scrolling for a few moments after you stop scrolling on your Trackpad. It gives a cool, smooth effect, but it can get annoying too, so change it to whatever feels better for you. 

Use Your Keyboard as a Mouse

You can change the settings to control the pointer with nothing but your keyboard or a number pad, which is perfect for people who need some accessibility advantages.

  1. Open the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen.
  2. Click on System Preferences.
  3. Click on Accessbilitity
  4. Select Pointer Control on the left side menu.
  5. Click on the Alternate Control Methods tab at the top of your screen. 
  6. Click Enable Mouse Keys to turn on this feature.

You can click on Options right next to it to personalize this feature even more. You can create a shortcut to trigger this option, make it, so your Mac completely ignores your Trackpad, and more.

Control the Mac’s Pointer With Your Head

If you want, you can also control your pointer with your head. Yeah, you read that right. Of course, your Mac will need to have a camera available to support this feature. Still, if you’re on a MacBook or an iMac, that’ll be perfect if you can’t or don’t want to use your hands to control your pointer.

  1. Open the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen.
  2. Select System Preferences.
  3. Click on Accessibility
  4. Select Pointer Control on the left side menu.
  5. Click on the Alternate Control Methods tab at the top of the window. 
  6. Click Enable Head Pointer.

You can click the options next to this option to customize it. You can change the pointer speed and use facial expressions to stop or resume instantly. You can also create your own facial expressions to customize your controls further. You can make your own shortcuts or actions that are specific to you. 

Keep on Customizing

There are other ways to customize your Mac’s pointer to have it just the way you like it. 

Remember that you can always disable some features to change your pointer back to its original form. You can try different methods for you to use your pointer and always go back to whatever felt natural for you in the first place. 

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