Enlarging the Mouse Pointer
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Enlarging the Mouse Pointer
The default size for the mouse pointer in OS X doesn’t suit everybody. Here’s how to make
it bigger and easier to see.
1.) Open System Preferences - it’s the fourth item in the Apple menu (the shape) in the
very top left corner of the screen as shown here:
a.) In the “System” section, usually about the fourth line of icons in System
Preferences, there is an icon labeled “Universal Access” which looks like a guy with
his arms out on a blue circle. This is the on the Universal Access icon. Click on this.
b.) The Universal Access pane has sections labeled “Seeing”, “Hearing”, “Keyboard”,
and “Mouse”.
c.) Click on the “Mouse” section and you’ll see a bunch of options related to how the
mouse works.
d.) Near the bottom of this pane is a slider labeled “Cursor Size”. Move the slider
towards the right and watch the mouse pointer get larger as you do. You can move
it to any point you like and the mouse pointer will stay that size.
e.) The mouse pointer’s size will stay enlarged until you go back and set it to a
smaller size again, logging out or rebooting the computer won’t change the size.
This setting only applies to whichever account you are logged into when you change
the setting, so if your computer has more than one account the others won’t be
affected. The mouse pointer size also won’t be enlarged after you log out, so the
login screen will still have the small pointer.
If you set the mouse pointer to a very large size, it can be sometimes hard to tell exactly
where it’s pointing - especially when you are using the “I-beam” shape pointer that pops up
when the mouse is over text. I suggest you open a file of text that you will be working on,
and check that you can still use the mouse usefully with the text - some adjustment of the
size might be useful.
There are other ways to make the mouse pointer more visible - programs are available that
can make the pointer animated, change its color, put something around the cursor to help
users find it. Some of these programs have the visibility help there all the time, others
especially highlight the mouse pointer only when you press a certain keystroke.
Leslyn Radomsky, MS/CCC, SLP/PA-L
Speech/Language Specialist/Assistive Technology Consultant
Department of Special Education
State College Area School District
* this information was obtained from the ATMac: Assistive Technology for the Mas OS X website.Categories: Neurologically Impaired, Simple, Users, Vision Impaired "Tags: cursor size, mouse
cursor, pointer size
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4 Comments For “Simple: Bigger Mouse Pointer”
Lisa Connor May 12th, 2008 at 6:23 pm !If you use this feature you may find your
cursor disappears when certain applications start. I’m not sure what causes it but it
mostly happens with games that probably have custom cursors and seems more likely
with full screen games. (I know this applies to The Sims 2{"Putting your cursor back
to the smallest size will cause the pointer to appear when you start the game again."
Ricky Buchanan May 12th, 2008 at 6:58 pm !@Lisa: Thanks for the hint - I don’t play
games much so I haven’t come across this problem. It sounds like something that
could be reported as a bug to Apple - you could email accessibility@apple.com about
it to help them fix it. Especially knowing which games cause it would be important."
chuck Oct 31st, 2008 at 1:10 pm !New to MAC and OSX, thanks for the quick and simple
solution. I was looking for this in system prefs for about 15mins and gave up. Glad
your site is alive and well on the net, it contains great information…."
Ricky Buchanan Nov 10th, 2008 at 12:36 pm !@chuck: Glad to be of service, it can be a
huge pain if you can’t find what you’re looking for!"Leave a Reply
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