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How to undo the "keyboard as mouse" setting on M1 iMac?

I turned on "keyboard as mouse" on my M1 iMac to test it out and forgot about it. Then my Mac needed to restart for an update. And when I go to type in my password, it won't accept one of the letters, o, because that's used as one of the keys to guide the mouse on the keyboard. Any suggestions on how to undo this? Apple Support couldn't figure it out. Is there some key combination that will allow an o to be entered? or any of the other affected keys?


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro (M1, 2020)

Posted on May 2, 2023 8:23 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 2, 2023 8:42 AM

sfosteve wrote:

Apple Support couldn't figure it out.

That's sad, this is a very common problem. Sometimes Mousekeys will turn off if you hit Option 5 times.


Fix for 789uiojkl keys or numeric keypad … - Apple Community


13 replies

May 2, 2023 8:50 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Yep, tried that, as well. They submitted a ticket for me and said it may be a few days to get an answer as to how to use the keyboard or how to sign-in. I can go to recovery to change my password but my AppleID has a "o" in it, as well. As do most because of icloud or .com. I get this is my fault in a way for not making sure I had that option 5X clicked but there really should be a simple way to bypass this functionality by using a command or shift key or some combination. I did find that there is a 2 second lag between the mac turning on and the "keyboard as mouse" functionality working. But I can't type fast enough my entire password (which has another key impacted by this in it) before it kicks in. It's like a really annoying app game at this point.


May 2, 2023 10:33 AM in response to xnav

Brilliant! That worked. Thanks very much. I had an old mac wired keyboard with the number pad on the side and plugged it in, restarted my Mac and it recognized the keyboard and allowed me to type again. Thanks for the suggestion. I had actually connected it previously but realized I didn't restart the mac when I did. Plus I had the wireless keyboard nearby. This time I restarted after moving the wireless keyboard far, far away. :-) Thanks again to everyone who responded, Nice to know if support can't give you ideas, the community can!

May 2, 2023 10:54 AM in response to Old Toad

Thanks. Now I don't feel so bad. The problem itself is easy to understand. Kind of nuts it takes this much effort to resolve. Luckily I had the old wired Mac keyboard with number pad. But I bet a lot of folks don't. Heck, I had to have the usb-usb-c adaptor to connect to the newer Mac. A simple key combination to override the keyboard as a mouse would be pretty simple I would think.

How to undo the "keyboard as mouse" setting on M1 iMac?

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