Macbook pro unibody trackpad issue

AMAZING thank you so much

Hilarious but effective: the side-click-trick worked for my bf's Macbook Pro (mid 2009) too! 😀 Thanks a lot!

Great fix Luke. You beauty! 😁

Dear Icowell,

You replied to this a few years ago but you just saved me so much hassle that I needed to thank you!! The fix worked 🙂 That was awesome!! Thanks again!!!

oh bless your sweet heart with the "turn it on its side and click a bunch" routine. this trackpad has been driving me absolute NUTS, i've tried to open this thing up and get to the trackpad to clean it...unsuccessful. who knew it was as easy as this!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU

This helped a little but what really helped is while doing this I noticed there was some grime here and there around the wall of the trackpad cutout. I used a regular home vacuum cleaner with the brush attachment to "scrub" the wall (with the bristles parallel to the trackpad and perpendicular to the wall--had to go around several times. A toothbrush would work too. Now completely back to normal.

So, thanks for making me look careefully at the trackpad rather than assuming something was damaged.

Extra credit: I also went lightly over the keyboard and speakers also--several times over the keyboard until no more cat hair, etc was poking out from under the keys.

Totally helped, thank you!

Mine was making an almost grinding noise, but was inconsistently doing it. Sounded to me like granules, maybe bits of sugar or salt (my macbook is always at my kitchen table). I tried to blow it out with air and it seemed to be resolved for a period. After it came back I thought I might need to open it up and switch out the trackpad... now I don't think so.

I just turned it to one side and clicked all around the pad, then turned the entire laptop to the other side and repeated. I assume this dislodged whatever debris was preventing normal function.

Thanks again, saved me from a headache. I'm clicking all around the trackpad right now and it feels like it's new again! Ahhhhh.