Hi LimitedUsernamesIsDumb,

I see you are a new user here in Apple Support Communities - welcome! I hope we find you contributing often in the future.

My understanding is that since updating your computer's operating system to Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan and using the Photos app you have experienced your mouse pointer disappearing at random intervals, and the only way to get it back is to restart the computer. Is that correct?

I know it can be easy to lose track of your mouse pointer on a crowded screen, particularly if you have multiple displays. El Capitan has a new way of making it easier to find it. See this article - http://www.apple.com/osx/whats-new/

In particular -

Call out your cursor.

Lost your cursor on your crowded desktop? Just shake your finger back and forth on the trackpad or give your mouse a shake, and the pointer gets bigger so it’s easy to spot.

To turn this on -

1. Go to the Apple menu and select System Preferences.
2. Select Accessibility.
3. Select Display.
4. Select the checkbox for Shake mouse pointer to locate.

If your mouse pointer still is not found, there are a couple of things I would like to try to troubleshoot the issue. First, does the issue occur if the Mac is on safe mode? To enter safe mode follow the steps in this article - Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up.

Once you have entered safe mode, see if the issue shows up. Test for a few hours or until the issue does show up again. After completing the test, restart the computer normally. If the issue disappears after safe mode and does not come back after restarting normally, you can skip the last step.

Next, I would like you to test the issue in a new user account on your Mac. Use the steps in this article - How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac.

Please report back here with the results of your testing.

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

Sincerely.