How to Adjust Mouse Sensitivity on MacBook

Cassandra McBride March 4, 2021

MacBook users tend to love the look and feel of their devices. Everything Apple seems so seamless and smooth. But what happens when your Macbook mouse is a little too smooth? Well, you could wind up shooting your cursor halfway across the screen while delicately trying to place it on the system’s tiny icons, and missing completely. If this is your situation, you’re likely frustrated.

How to Adjust Mouse Sensitivity on MacBook

Some people like their cursor to move super-slow, while others like to set the sensitivity to maximum. It all depends on your habits and what you use the mouse for. Changing the sensitivity on your Mac computer is easy and straightforward. In this article, you will learn how to do that and make some other customizations without any apps.

Making Mouse Changes on Mac

You can change the speed of your mouse, the scroll direction, and the right-click speed on a Mac operating system without a lot of hassle. macOS has one of the easiest-to-use settings, and it takes only a few clicks to change things. Here’s what you have to do to customize the features of your mouse:

Click on the Apple icon in the top-left corner of the screen.
Select “System Preferences” in the dropdown menu.
Select “Mouse” in the window that pops up.
Click on “Point & Click” to access the mouse pointer settings.
Tick the box that says “Scrolling direction: natural” if you want the mouse scroll to follow the direction of your fingers.
The second box, “Secondary click,” enables right-clicking, so go ahead and tick that too.
Click on the little arrow just below “Secondary click” to select which mouse button you want to use as primary. You can leave it as is or switch the two buttons. However, you can’t do it on a non-Apple mouse.
Move the “Tracking Speed” slider left or right to set the speed of the mouse pointer on your screen. You will feel the difference in real-time, so move it left and right until you find the right speed.

Changing the Double-Clicking Speed

With a super-fast mouse, you could sometimes double-click on something by accident. That’s why you might want to decrease the double-clicking speed of your mouse. Here’s what you have to do:

Click on the Apple icon in the top-left corner of your screen.
Again, select “System Preferences” from the dropdown menu.
Select “Accessibility” and scroll down until you see “Mouse & Trackpad.” Go ahead and select that.
You will see the “Double-click speed” slider that looks much like the “Tracking Speed” slider. Move it left or right to increase or decrease the double-click speed. When the slider is set all the way to the left, you will need to wait four seconds for the second click to trigger double-clicking. That’s a bit too slow, but hey, someone might like it that way.
If you want to enable the feature that opens files when you hover your cursor over them, tick the box next to the “Spring-loading delay” slider.”
Drag the slider to set the hovering time that triggers file opening. Again, the left is slower, the right is faster.

Changing the Scrolling Speed

You can also set the scrolling speed of your mouse if the default speed is not right for you. Do it like this:

Open the Accessibility Settings and click on ‘Pointer Control’ just like we did above.
Select “Mouse Options.”
Drag the “Scrolling Speed” slider left and right to set the scrolling speed.
Click “OK” when you’re happy with the speed.

Changing Magic Mouse Gestures

Apple’s Magic Mouse has some unique features native to the Mac OS. The Gestures feature allows you to set some unique gestures that can help you with all kinds of tasks. Here’s what you have to do:

Click the Apple icon and select “System Preferences” from the dropdown menu.
Select “Mouse.”
Select “More Gestures” to see all of the available options.
Select the box that says “Swipe between pages” if you want to swipe or scroll pages with mouse movement. You can choose to scroll left and right with just one finger or swipe right and left with either one or two fingers. That means that you’ll have to hold the required mouse button while moving the mouse to swipe.
The box “Swipe between full-screen apps” allows you to switch between different full-screen programs in the same way.
The “Mission Control” box gives you the ability to call up Mission Control by tapping your mouse lightly.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I change the Trackpad settings on my MacBook?

Changing the Trackpad settings on your MacBook is very similar to the instructions above aside from a few navigational paths. When you open System Preferences click on ‘Trackpad.’

From here you can access the ‘Point & Click’ functions as well as the Scroll & Zoom or Gestures functions. Explore each tab choosing the preferences that best meet your needs.

Customize Your Magic Mouse in Seconds

People who spend a lot of time working on a MacBook often think that the default mouse sensitivity is too slow for them to be able to get things done as fast as possible. If you are one of those people, the simple steps above will allow you to customize your Magic Mouse to your needs and make sure you match it with your needs.

Do you have any other Magic Mouse tips and tricks you think would help your fellow MacBook users? If so, share them with the TechJunkie community in the comments below.