Can I turn off blue arrow to indicate text cursor?

No, it's definitely Apple - a new feature in Sonoma OS. I've had the same version of Microsoft software on my Mac for a few years with no recent upgrade. But immediately upon upgrading the OS to Sonoma, the blue arrow appeared in all my software. Specifically my Adobe software such as Photoshop, in the text fields. Microsoft would not have the power to do this Apple OS wide. But Apple would. Anyway, it turns out not to be as big of a pain as I thought, because it's only when caps lock is on. That's why it's called caps lock indicator. But some of my work flow scenarios require caps lock to be on, and then this feature becomes extremely annoying. Not adding a simple way in System Settings to turn this feature off is very short-sighted and lame on Apple's part. Not only that, it's a stupid unnecessary feature.

It's an indicator that your CAPS lock is on and there's no way to turn it off.

So I discovered that if you activate caps lock on and then leave to go another window using three-finger-drag to switch to another screen and then coming back activates it, so to get it to go away you simply drag three fingers left or right to another window(ex. Main screen), turn caps lock off and then drag three fingers back to preferred screen and it goes away. It works for me at least 🤷‍♂️hope this helps 😎🙌

You might be onto something there. No question I first started seeing it when I upgraded to Sonoma. However, now that you mention it, I believe that I mostly see it when I'm running Windows in a Parallels Desktop simulation. Not entirely however, because if I turn the caps-lock on now, it appears right under my cursor!! (and I don't have Parallels Desktop or any Microsoft Mac software running right now.) If I open a new Pages document and hit caps-lock, the blue arrow appears. But maybe there is some connection to permissions I've granted for when I am running a Microsoft program??

This is the worst auto ads feature I’ve ever experienced. I’m spending considerable time hitting the stupid caps lock key twice to turn it on or off, and I can’t space or do much if caps lock is engaged, as indicated by the ridiculous blue arrow.

Why would anyone add this? I can’t turn it off without turning off the caps lock key? How in the absolute frickity frick am I supposed to type properly with that sort of insane requirement forcefully added by the update?

it essentially breaks TextEdit for any work I’m doing as I admittedly don’t have the patience to keep messing with it. Thanks Apple!

“PROBLEM SOLVED!”

I called Apple support and we figured out how to fix this. My guess is, you all are using the Apple magic keyboard. Here’s how to fix it:

Go to: ACCESSIBILITY

GO to: KEYBOARDS

Go to: FULL KEYBOARD

Toggle on: FULL KEYBOARD ACCESS

It may be necessary for you to remove your iPad from the keyboard, tap the CAPS LOCK button and return it to the keyboard.

*(you might try this as your first step so you can actually see the results before the above steps)

If you find success with the above steps, I did, then please hit the UP arrow or mark this as a BEST ANSWER.

🙏 Max Berkowitz

Have you tried restarting your MacBook?

Perhaps it’s only a fix for iPad using a Magic Keyboard as it disappeared completely, after going through my posted steps.

I’ll try it on my MacBook tomorrow and see if I can recreate the fix and report back here on the results.

I do have the same question as mentioned above. if anyone could tell us how to turn it off ??

Is this for real? It needs to go away.

I honestly can't stand it. I just now downgraded my macos back to Ventura and won't return to Sonoma until this is fixed better than it is.

There is nothing in Sonoma (nor Ventura, for that matter) than I want and this is an unnecessary aggravation. I spend 75% of my time in Terminal where I noticed it.

Agree that this is so absolutely unneeded and it's appearing in all of my programs used to date: Notes, Word, .ppt, Excel. It's driving me MAD and gets in the way of quick responses to ANYTHING. Has nothing to do with CAPS LOCK on my machine.

My Caps Lock is NOT on. This annoying blue arrow has to go. Pops up randomly and stays on the screen, covering up text until I point my cursor on it and click it, then it disappears and does not bring any pop up on when clicked... so what is its purpose to begin with? Some say it only comes on when the Caps Lock is on... but this keeps popping up when it is off.

The oblong shape added to the cursor obscures text in the line below and sometimes requires additional clicking to get the thing out of the way. It's an annoying and unneeded distraction. Apple, why did you do this? This is reminiscent of past Microsoft blunders.

Professional writer. My workflow, for decades, has been to freewrite draft content in ALL CAPS and change revised sections to sentence case as they are finished.

Capslock indicator beside the field when entering password? Beautiful.

Capslock indicator in BRIGHT BLUE flashing on under my cursor every time I stop to think? Maddening. Clippy-must-die levels of maddening, because at least Clippy could be turned OFF.

Please fix this as soon as possible—and make the change granular enough that we can get rid of the blue arrow everywhere without losing the password-fail clue arrow.

Thank you.

Thanks, that's a great option for people who have access to Terminal. I'll probably do that if I update my home Mac to Sonoma before there's an official fix.

Individual users in business settings (my day job situation) don't necessarily have the skill or the access to Terminal and sudo commands to make that kind of change. This is not a realistic solution for anyone in an enterprise-managed Mac environment.