One of my gripes when I switched to using a Mac full time was that I could never get my mouse to track fast enough. Here is a solution that worked for me.
- Open a Terminal Window
- Enter the following command to see what your current setting is:
defaults read -g com.apple.mouse.scaling
- This will return a numeric value. To speed up (or slow down) your mouse tracking, you can simply change this number accordingly by typing the following command, replacing the “your_mouse_speed” with a new number such as 5.0. Notice that read has been changed to write:
defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling your_mouse_speed
- The maximum mouse speed on mac desktops is 3.0 (when maxed out in system preferences). I changed my speed to 5.0 for my 24″ iMac and it was noticeably better.
defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling 5.0
- You may need to restart your mac to see the changes take effect.
Update Jan 2010 : This method also works with the new magic mouse as well.
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
nice tip..thanks!
Exactly what I need. Speed up my mouse. Just one problem. What is a terminal window? How do I get too it? Can you give me better instructions?
From the finder menu, choose Go -> Utilities -> Terminal
Didn’t work.
after setting the new mouse speed value, tru to logout and login back to reload configuration (works for me, after doing that). Gr8 tip tyler.
Thank you
You’re welcome Joey – Hey cool deal putting a mini in your prius http://www.joeyjbarrett.com/prius/
Did it have any heat issues?
That was a really cool idea putting the mini in the prius. Pretty sweet hack.
Just wanted to say thanks for the tip. It worked great for me with 10.6 and trying to make my new Magic Mouse usable.
Glad it helped Mike!
another “thank you” – worked a treat for me, much happier with the mouse speed now
Your welcome Kris!
Nice… Been looking for something like this. What exactly does the -g flag do though?
Hi Sean,
-gd is the same as -globalDomain
Tyler
hey! That worked. I pushed it up to 7.0 and wow I don’t have to lift up the mouse anymore. Thanks.
Glad it worked for you, Dave.
Thanks so much Tyler! Works like a dream on my new 27″ iMac. Like B Dave said, it’s so nice to no longer have to pick the mouse up every ten seconds.
You’re welcome Jimmy. I am envious of your 27″ iMac!
Thanks a lot for this tip!
Hint for others: I had to restart my iMac before it worked.
How is that terminal command used to see the value already there?
Never mind. Found it in terminal help and “man”.
Just substitute “write” with “read”.
Tnx for the tip anyway. It works perfectly.
Thanks for pointing that out Geo. I have updated the instructions to first read what the setting is before changing it.
Hi,
Thanks a lot Tyler, this is exactly what I need. I changed the speed for both trackpad and mouse. But I have problems to keep this setting. It works perfectly and then it just goes back to 3 again..
Do you know why?
Hi,
Great tip. Yesterday I’ve bought my very first Mac and it’s a big one iMac 27″ (core i5) and was wondering why the mouse was so slow cos this supposed to be a fast machine and I was used to a supermouse on my pc
Tx to your tip i’m lookin’ for a speed that fits my needs for now I’m at 8.0
Danny (Belgium)
Glad it worked for you Danny. Congrats on the 27″ iMac. Thats a great system!
works great make sure you restart comp after. thanks for the tip much improved
Genius Bar person. Thanks
Fantastic. It now works the way I want it. It was driving me nuts. Good to see others had the same problem too. I can’t work with a slow mouse. Thanks.