Disappearing Cursor

Question

Level 1

8 points

Disappearing Cursor

In any program or in finder my cursor disappears. I have a MacBookAir running High Sierra 10.13.6. To get cursor back I have to close laptop and reopen and it appears again; until it disappears.

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on May 3, 2019 11:08 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

sberman

Level 10

264,219 points

May 3, 2019 2:43 PM in response to chuckbucktwo

One thing you can do is the following:

System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Shake Mouse Pointer to Locate

That way, with this setting "On", if you quickly move your pointer, it will become considerably larger and easier to find.

Reply

Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

239,525 points

May 8, 2019 12:01 PM in response to chuckbucktwo

Is this a USB or Bluetooth Mouse... never happens with my USB Mouse.

EtreCheck is a simple little app to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac.

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

Use the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck.

Reply

Answer 3

HWTech

Level 9

56,060 points

May 3, 2019 5:53 PM in response to chuckbucktwo

I've been seeing this on High Sierra systems as well, but I've always been able to get the cursor back by moving the "pointer" until it reappears or waiting a little longer. I wasn't sure if this was an OS issue or not since the laptops I've seen this on have other hardware issues, but I now believe it is just an OS bug. A few times I was just about to restart the laptop when suddenly the cursor reappeared.

Reply

Answer 4

chuckbucktwo Author

Level 1

8 points

May 8, 2019 12:00 PM in response to BDAqua

I rebooted holding down the shift key and that seemed to work. Thank you! This is my husbands Mac and I was comparing it to mine. The only difference is I'm running Mojave. He's averse to upgrades.

I checked preferences and shake mouse pointer was activated. Then I made the mouse very big and it still disappeared. As I moved it all over the place I could see things activating but the pointer was missing.

If it happens again I'll get Mojave. Thanks all!

Reply

Answer 5

chuckbucktwo Author

Level 1

8 points

May 9, 2019 9:41 AM in response to BDAqua

To BDAqua: He's not using a peripheral mouse. It's the pointer used with the built in trackpad. Now that I think of it, I had the same problem when I was using High Sierra but it was once in a while. Ive been using Macs since 1988 and I seem to remember sometime in the late 90's I would do soft reboots now and then but I can't remember why. Maybe to defragment the hard drive? Man, we've come a loooooong way from then!

Reply