Comments on: Mouse Acceleration on a Mac – What it is and How to Adjust or Disable it

By: vaal

vaal — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 16:51:40 +0000

I’m not convinced that the value the author talks about under .GlobalPreferences has to do with the acceleration at all. If you change the tracking speed this value changes proportional. Maybe OS X just links them somehow but even if so this is still a problem as the link goes both ways and setting this to -1 leads to an intolerably slow tracking speed.

By: vaal

vaal — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 16:46:36 +0000

Yep, that is all there is to it.

By: Ciaran

Ciaran — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:27:26 +0000

I switched to mac about 5 years ago and still can’t get used to the way the mouse works. It’s not the acceleration or sensitivity, it’s the stupid curve that apple uses and I’ve never found an effective way to change it.

By: Control the Acceleration Speeds of a Mac Mouse & Trackpad Separately

Control the Acceleration Speeds of a Mac Mouse & Trackpad Separately — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:46:49 +0000

[...] but the acceleration curve is a whole other beast. In you’re unfamiliar, we’ve discussed mouse acceleration in the past, explaining it as follows: By default the mouse drivers count the movement of your [...]

By: Marco

Marco — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:05:49 +0000

How, exactly, does one go about changing the defaults in Terminal? I mean, I see that you have supplied the code. But is it simply a matter of opening Terminal, inserting your cursor in the little gray box area, pasting the code and hitting return? Or is there something more to it?

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 01:31:31 +0000

“find the cursor feels funny and more responsive”… Yeah right. It’s like a reflex game trying to get the pointer to where you want it. If you don’t scroll quickly, the cursor almost doesn’t move at all, but cross an invisible quickness threshold and the cursor vanishes into the distance. As I move the mouse right now, it moves with little fits and jumps even though I’m trying my hardest to keep it steady.

By: Diane

Diane — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 17:54:17 +0000

I wish there were a program somewhere that would mimic the Windows acceleration curve exactly. I have tried MouseFix and a bunch of other stuff, and none of it works. It’s very annoying because I have to shift back and forth between a Mac and a PC and you can’t just “get used to” the different curve if you have to do that. It also makes graphics programs very difficult to use. If anyone finds a program that exactly mimics the Windows curve, please email me! Thank you!

By: Henrik

Henrik — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:11:52 +0000

My personal opinion is that mouse acceleration decreased my presicion. My first tought when I plugged a mice into my MacBook was that it was unresponsive, while it felt way more natural when using the trackpad.

Regardless, thanks for this great article!

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 22:32:48 +0000

You can set it to something else, like:

defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling 3

the number on the end can be adjusted up or down, the higher the number the faster the movement and vice versa

By: louis

louis — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 22:15:40 +0000

Hi,
I just tried the command “defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1″; but since then my mouse speed is very slow … and chaging the tracking/slider in the mouse menu doesn’t respond anymore
Ho do I cancel this “defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1″ Command ?

thanks
Louis

By: Kill Mac OS X Mouse Acceleration from the command line - OS X Daily

Kill Mac OS X Mouse Acceleration from the command line - OS X Daily — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:38:56 +0000

[...] can read more about mouse acceleration including some other ways to adjust [...]

By: inket

inket — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:03:17 +0000

Mouse acceleration in the OS is fine/bearable and we can get used to it.
BUT, in games it’s really weird and unpractical. (None of the methods you mentioned gives a Windows-like mouse acceleration).

By: hpux735

hpux735 — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:14:50 +0000

A GREAT hint would be: “What are the windows acceleration settings needed to match MacOS?” When I use BootCamp to boot windows the mouse feels slow and irritating.