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My mouse is behaving erratically

My mouse is behaving erratically and I don't know if I need a new mouse


iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Aug 1, 2021 12:51 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 1, 2021 1:18 PM

What does "behaving erratically" mean?


Are you using a wireless mouse?

Make sure it is fully recharged or has a fresh battery.


Borrow another mouse from someone and see if the same problem happens with that.


Reboot your Mac and see if the problem is cleared.  If rebooting your Mac doesn’t fix things, see if the problem still happens in Safe mode (hold the shift key down at startup). It can take much longer (10 min) to safe boot so be patient.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support 


Safe mode forces the OS to clear certain caches and logs and do other miscellaneous housekeeping. It's non-destructive to user data so is safe to do.  Very often certain weird software behavior is corrected by simply logging in this way as a troubleshooting method. When you're in safe boot, the machine will not be at its best performance, especially with graphics, but that's normal.


Does the problem persist while in Safe mode?

Exit safe mode by restarting your Mac normally and re-evaluate the issue again.

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 1, 2021 1:18 PM in response to Bow1002

What does "behaving erratically" mean?


Are you using a wireless mouse?

Make sure it is fully recharged or has a fresh battery.


Borrow another mouse from someone and see if the same problem happens with that.


Reboot your Mac and see if the problem is cleared.  If rebooting your Mac doesn’t fix things, see if the problem still happens in Safe mode (hold the shift key down at startup). It can take much longer (10 min) to safe boot so be patient.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support 


Safe mode forces the OS to clear certain caches and logs and do other miscellaneous housekeeping. It's non-destructive to user data so is safe to do.  Very often certain weird software behavior is corrected by simply logging in this way as a troubleshooting method. When you're in safe boot, the machine will not be at its best performance, especially with graphics, but that's normal.


Does the problem persist while in Safe mode?

Exit safe mode by restarting your Mac normally and re-evaluate the issue again.

My mouse is behaving erratically

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