How To Fix Mouse Cursor Stuck On Mac In macOS Monterey
Mouse cursor stuck on Mac.
Is the mouse cursor stuck on Mac after updating to macOS Monterey? Does this happen every now and then but it’s really annoying when it does? Is the cursor also lagging sometimes and ruining your Mac experience?
Mouse Cursor Stuck On Mac?
This issue was reported to us by Margo:
“Mouse cursor getting stuck. I have to use the trackpad to reconnect magic mouse! Anyone else getting this since Monterey?”
I’ve been able to replicate this on a MacBook Air 2017 and also found a similar complaint on Apple’s Discussion Forums.
How To Fix Mouse Cursor Stuck In macOS Monterey
There’s no universal fix for a stuck or lagging MacBook mouse cursor. However, you can try the following troubleshooting tips:
1. Disconnect and ReConnect Magic Mouse
- If the pointer becomes stuck and doesn’t move while you use the mouse, switch for the MacBook trackpad and bring the cursor on top of the Bluetooth icon, in the menu bar. Click it.
- Next, click on the icon available next to the Mouse name.
- Wait a couple of seconds and click again to reconnect the Bluetooth mouse.
- Move the Magic Mouse. Does the cursor move too?
2. Enable Trackpad
Is the trackpad not working either? This might be caused by the following setting:
- Open System Preferences and click on Accessibility.
- Go for Pointer Control, available in the left sidebar in the Motion category.
- Make sure that the ‘ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present’ is not checked!
3. Restart Mac
If the mouse cursor is still stuck you should reboot your Mac. A fresh start should at least temporarily fix this glitch.
How to: Press & hold cmd (command) + ctrl (Control) keys along with the Power button until the screen goes blank and the Mac restarts.
Does The Mouse Cursor Lag In macOS Monterey?
Are you also experiencing lagging behavior? Is the pointer moving with delay? Use the comments section to share your feedback.
Have you managed to fix the mouse cursor stuck on Mac in macOS Monterey? Do you have a better solution? Share it below, using the comments option!
Related: Here is how to fix other common macOS 12 issues:
– USB hubs not working in macOS Monterey.
– Screensaver displays black screen instead of photos selected from your folder or album.
– Emails not loading in Mail after macOS 12.0.1 update.
Magic Mouse lags after Monterey 12.0.1 update. disconnected from bluetooth and reconnected in bluetooth. no change. mouse lags badly. is there a fix?
Thanks for reporting Dan. Try the following:
1. Restart Mac.
2. If it still lags, open Bluetooth -> Bluetooth Preferences… -> Remove your mouse from the list. Re-add the mouse. Does it help?
Magic mouse pointer is frozen every time I wake my MacBook Air from sleeping. I have to turn Bluetooth Off and back On to unfreeze it. This is very annoying!!!
Thanks for the report. Yes, we can confirm this behavior. Couldn’t find any workaround yet.
Same problem since installing Monterey, MBP is 2 weeks old!!
Thanks for confirming. Have you tried to contact Apple support?
Mouse and Keyboard unlink every time I wake switch on my iMac since installed Monterey.
Thanks for the feedback.
Magic Mouse stops scrolling and have noticed that some web pages occasionally freeze (may be a the site’s issue and not related) The scrolling problem however is annoying and happens several times a day. I have to turn off the mouse and reconnect to rectify. This has only begun since the Monterey upgrade.
Thanks for the feedback Wayne. This actually is Monterey related as we’re getting the same issues since updating to macOS 12.0.1. Mouse freezes almost every time when waking up the MacBook in the morning. Scroll also stops working several times a day. I am disconnecting and reconnecting Magic Mouse 2 from the Bluetooth menu to fix it.
Scroling with magic mouse 2 with Monterey stops occasionally. Happens with Chrome and Safari. Not a mouse problem. It is as bug with Monterey. You would think Apple would have figured this stuff out already. Very poor software. Think I will revert to Big Sur. A disgrace
Thanks for confirming James. Indeed, the first release is quite glitchy. Let’s hope that macOS 12.1 will be able to fix most of these issues.
12.0.1 update also causes mouse to stop scrolling. Have to turn mouse off and back on again to fix. Hopefully we can get a fix. Very annoying
Thanks for the feedback John. Indeed it does that.
Thank you for the information. This is really bad. Like a new car with tires that don’t hold air.
You’re welcome. Yes, it needs to get some brand new all seasons.
It surely does. Specifically when trying to change tabs in chrome.
Thanks for the feedback.
Have been using my MacBook Pro for over 3 years now, never had a problem. But since last week, the Magic mouse keeps disconnecting for a few seconds ~5-10 sec.
Mostly I see it happen when I am on Safari browsing Facebook.
I am on Big Sur 11.4.. It may not be a Monterey only problem.
Thanks for the feedback. This is strange. Never experienced cursor problems in Big Sur.
Experiencing this on Big Sur running on a 2020 Intel iMac since yesterday.
I play a lot online chess and the mouse lags a lot after this update.
Thanks for the feedback Goran. It does indeed. macOS 12.1 should be released by the end of the month. Let’s hope it fixes it.
I am have been experiencing the same on Big Sur 11.6.1 since last week. Seems to happen only after waking from sleeping.
Thanks for reporting this Lynne. That’s strange. Never encountered in while on Big Sur. It only started appearing after updating to macOS Monterey. Yes, it does after waking from a ‘longer’ (overnight) sleep. No problems when having the MacBook on sleep for a shorter time frame.
I find the left click doesn’t work on the mouse and I have to restart the computer to get it to work again.
Thanks for reporting Jason. Does this happen unexpectedly while using the mouse, or after you wake the Mac up from sleep?
I have a 2016 iMac now running Monterey. It has been slower since installing this. Last couple of weeks the cursor has been lagging/getting frozen/disappearing . It’s now stuck in the upper left corner. Tried the SMC/NVRAM mentioned, but nothing. We don’t have a Magic Mouse, just a generic Bluetooth one. Yes I changed the batteries. Tried with a wired mouse, same problem….
Thanks for reporting this Niki. Is your iMac updated to macOS Monterey 12.1? Have you tried to forget mouse and re-connect it?
I was not aware that this was due to Monterey. I am now on version 12.3 and it is still happening. I have found that I can wait for a few seconds and it will “un-freeze” or refresh the page that I’m on.
I’m on version 12.3.1 and am experiencing the same issue. This has happened a couple of times already. Whenever I try to wake my iMac with Magic Mouse, it doesn’t flinch. When I press the power button, it wakes up but refuses to work at all. Neither my keyboard nor my mouse are responsive when this happens. Strange. If anyone has a solution, please let me know. Thank you.
I installed Moterey yesterday. Today, after booting up and entering my password, the curser is frozen. I did a force shut down since I can’t do anything else and went to guest user. in guest user, it works. I have composed this text using guest user but all my important files are in admin user and when I shut down guest user everything gets deleted. This is a HUGE defect in the product. Apple should pay for professional repairs.
I installed Monterey mid 2015 MacBook Pro (11.5), up from Mojave, with an original 512g Apple drive. I had exactly the same experience as maah (25 April, 2022). I reinstalled Monterey in Recovery Mode – problem persists and Guest user has now disappeared, so can do nothing with that updated drive. I had a one TB backup OWC drive prepared with Big Sur and swapped it out with the original Apple 512g drive, and now back to normal. Crazy problem – Apple should have been on it big time already.
Going to Apple reseller (Cape Town) to enquire – what if they had installed Monterey for me – how would they have dealt with the problem?!
Thanks for the feedback Andy. Keep us updated on this, I’m curious what answer they provide.
They said – remove all non native apps from my OWC, then back up. Reinstall original Apple drive, fully format it, load Monterey and then start adding my non native apps one by one and see if any of them induced the frozen cursor & trackpad.
So I formatted the Apple drive completely & installed Monterey – that worked perfectly and no freezing. I took a chance and added my info from the OWC backup, but with all my non native apps still on there (too lazy – trying to avoid reinstalling all my non native apps) – and there was the frozen cursor & trackpad back again!
So now I’m going to follow their advice and try totally removing and then reinstalling the non native apps one by one – what a mission…….
They suggested I hand my Mac in to them and they’d start looking for the problem – no guarantees and cost unknown…..they wouldn’t say yes they knew about the problem, but said it could have many different causes, different for each users machine…..
Thanks for the follow up Andy. That sounds like a lot of work. Hope you’ll get lucky and will find the culprit among the first few non-native apps. Keep us posted.
I installed the “App cleaner and uninstaller” app ($20) on my OWC drive (Big Sur) & removed non-native apps that were not commonly known everyday ones (eg I kept Skype, Zoom, VLC, Abobe, Chrome, Firefox, Grammarly, HP printer bundle, MS Office, Malwarebytes, iTube Studio, Vuze, Whatsapp, Hotspotshield VPN). Interestingly the App cleaner listed apps in my machine that did not appear on the list under Applications in Finder – I removed all those too, and there were plenty of obscure ones amongst them (I looked at their developers via Get Info).
I then backed up the OWC drive to Time Capsule, swopped it out with the original Apple drive, erased the Apple drive via Disk Utility in Recovery mode, downloaded a fresh Monterey onto the Apple drive, then restored my back up from the Time Capsule onto the Apple drive….and….Monterey is now working perfectly on the Apple drive.
So…there was something in those removed apps that froze the cursor and trackpad in Monterey. There are only a couple of the removed apps that I would want to put back, so I avoided having to remove + re-install every non-native app – I haven’t done that yet as I’m nervous that I might freeze Monterey again, and won’t be able to access App Cleaner to properly remove them. I guess from now, to be on the safe side, I’ll add only Apps that have Apple “approved developer” status.
What a run around. Sadly I believe Monterey is the last update that my 15inch mid 2015 MacBook Pro retina will handle – it is the best Apple laptop i’ve ever had – it’s 7 years old now and still performing flawlessly with around 5 hours daily use. I can see it lasting easily another 7.
Thanks for the follow up Andy.
Yep, that was quite a ride. Happy that you managed to solve it. Yeah, you definitely should stick with approved apps only, to avoid such hassle.
Regarding your old Mac, we will find out soon because macOS 13 Developer beta will be released in a couple of weeks along with the compatibility specs.
For me it was universal control was on my wife’s MacBook Pro and my iMacPro….I kept mousing over to the edge of my screen our computers would blip and both trackpads would freeze the cursor. Disabled it on both machines and we’re good.
Thanks for the feedback Thomas. Yes Universal Control is a relative new feature and it might glitch out in these early stages.
I had the same problem. I checked out if my screen hot corners were set up. They were not. I’ve set them now and Wait to see if it happens again
Thanks for the feedback James. Let us know if it makes any difference.
I am on 12.4 and mouse freezing started yesterday. Have had to turn off computer numerous times during the day to get the mouse to work. Didn’t matter if it was bluetooth or wired mouse…. it still keeps freezing every hour or so.
What’s the solution? I use 2020 27 inch iMac 3.3 ghz 6-core intel core i5 with 8 GB.
Thanks for the feedback. Did you change anything with your computer’s configuration. Did you update recently to macOS 12.4? Or it’s been a while since you updated and problems started. Would appreciate any extra details that could help us pinpoint the cause of this issue.
i have the same problem with the cursor frozen after every sleep. i have to reboot my mac many times per day and this is annoying. i m really disappointed! any solution?
I found that it unfreezes if you keep the MacBook lid open when it sleeps and you click the mouse cursor to wake your Mac. If the Mac is woken by opening the lid, the cursor remains stuck. Can you confirm this behavior?