Q: Is my Magic Mouse Dead?

My Magic Mouse didn't alert me to low batteries and was working fine one day and nothing the next, the green light doesn't come on at all and my iMac doesn't  see it as a device. I've used it for 2.5 years without trouble, it has never been dropped or abused in any way. I changed the batteries (freshly recharged ones that work fine in my keyboard and have never given me any trouble in the past 2.5 years. I seem to be in the minority in that I have the Apple rechargeable batteries). I have tried every suggestion in this post; I have cleaned the terminals, sprayed canned air for dust, aluminum foil, SHIFT+CONTROL+OPTION+POWER, and even tried three different kinds of batteries hoping for a fluke. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Had the same problem as everyone here with the Magic Mouse. Was using it one minute and it was dead the next. It is over three years old so AppleCare was out and changing the batteries didn't work either. I cleaned the terminals and voila it came back to life.

Meanwhile my wireless Mighty Mouse never stops working. It is 6+ years old. The negative terminals are springs in the Mighty Mouse vs the stumps on the Magic Mouse so that must be the difference that keeps the Mighty going without terminal cleaning.

Same as others, a quick clean of the terminals with an emery board nail file got it working again. Can only assume that the terminals build up some oxidation through time.

Thanks for sharing this trick.  It works like a charm! 

I always found that an old fashioned pencil eraser twirled around on the contacts removed most of the build up.

The batteries of my magic mouse were oxidate to the point that even when I cleaned it, it didn't work. Then I realized the minus pole of the battery holders are  fused to the back of it's frame (because of the oxidation). So, I pulled them out with a narrow plier. Now my mouse works fine.

The problem is that the Magic Mouse is not reliable. Sometime ago I gave up using the Magic Mouse because it was giving much trouble. Last week I decided to connect it again and it worked perfectly for a week or so, and then the troubles began. So I will not use it anymore; I'm using my old Apple wired mouse and I have no more troubles. I think Apple must review the Magic Mouse project urgently.

I had the same problem. I changed the batteries over switched the mouse on and got a little light from it but it wouldn't work. I switched off bluetooth with windows mouse left it for 30 seconds then switched it back on and then mac mouse worked again.

Update -- and solution: A posting within a discussion board that is located on a different site suggested that the interior end of the Magic Mouse's battery cavity can occassionally oxidize, which requires said ends to be carefully 'scraped clean.' I checked into that possibility and found no such oxidization. But there was a tiny bit of dust on both of the surfaces to which the top of the batteries make contact (not the pins, which the bottom of the batteries connect with). I cleaned that little bit of dust off with a cotton swab which had first been moistened with a disinfectant wipe, then reinserted the batteries and the cover plate, and then turned the mouse on. Violà! Everything works fine now!

Worked Perfectly! Thank you!

Thank you for the cleaning contacts tip.

I just used an IPA wipe to clean the contacts and it's sprung back to life.

Duracell didn't work for me but rechargeables did. I was about to bin my years old magic mouse, glad I tried this and cleaning the contacts. Thanks.

yes me too, i was just reading the first page of comments, and was very said to read everybody's mouse are dying. I took out the batteries strongly blew into the mouse, then using my finger I cleaned the positive end touching circle place aaand voila!!!! it works perfect now!!!

I had the same problem.  Fairly easy fix.  The green light appears to indicate that the mouse is connected - it's NOT a power indicator.  I simply got a spare wired mouse and plugged it in.  Once I'd done that, I clicked on the bluetooth icon one the top bar of the desktop, went down to the Apple Magic Mouse option in the pop up menu and clicked Connect.  Suddenly, the little green light came back on and my mouse was connected again, albeit with new batteries in.  I could then unplug the wired mouse again.

I just replaced batteries and the mouse didn't work. Investigating I noticed that some batteries positive terminals don't stick out as far as others. Safeway batteries and one other brand couldn't make contact. Radio Shack's, with a more prominent positive terminal, worked fine.