mac mouse moves but doesn't click

I came across this thread and thought I'd reply with my fix.

My setup: Macbook Pro, Thunderbolt Monitor, Wireless Magic Mouse, Wireless Trackpad, Wacom Tablet

I had exactly the same issue - the mouse and trackpad would move the cursor around the screen, but the left-click function wouldn't work on either device. The Wacom tablet (pen tablet) left click would work. I scratched my head about it, came across this forum, checked my mouse preferences and noticed that there was ANOTHER mouse connected to my Mac. I carry another magic mouse around in my bag for offsite meetings, and the mouse was in range of the mac. The button on the mouse was pressed down by other stuff in my bag, causing a constant left-click signal to be sent to my Mac. I turned the mouse in my bag off and everything is back to normal!

To see if you have other bluetooth devices that could be interfering with your mouse, head to System Preferences > Bluetooth and look to make sure you don't have a conflicting device connected to your computer.

This morning my mac (21.5, mid 2011, 2.5ghz i5, ios 10.12.4 Sierra) quit responding to left- or right-clicks from the bluetooth mouse. This problem started immediately after I woke up the computer -- the mac never responded to the mouse this morning after working fine last night. The mouse would move the cursor from left to right and up and down on the mac screen, but the mac would not respond to clicks. Rebooted, changed batteries, etc. Nothing helped.

Then, for some reason, I double-clicked the mouse with a longer-than-usual delay between the first and second click...AND THE CLICK WORKED. Now, I have to figure out what happened and why, and how to get the mac to recognize quicker clicks again.

Side note: I've noticed that my mac responds a little differently since my kid started using it to play Roblox. The difference had to do with the window view being reset to hide the control bar and sluggish response while trying to exit Roblox. Don't know if the mouse issue is a sypmtom of that or not.

I had the problem on a white macbook3.1. After reading this I noticed the battery had bulged. Took it out and it all works again. Looks like it was causing just enough pressure above the battery to make the trackpad stick.

O'kay, I have the exact problem where my Mighty Mouse moves but the click doesn't respond. I did everything that everyone has mentioned and problem still exists. I do have two mighty mouses (one @ studio & other @ home) as well with 2 wireless keyboards. But here's the real head scratcher... I'm traveling and only brought one Mighty Mouse with me and no other wireless devices. I'm working on a kitchen table with no other blue tooth devices near me and was working fine until now. I've preformed a Safe Mode, a Hardware test, and reset the NVRAM. On top of that, I ran disk utility on the machine and everything checked out fine. My batteries are 100% and I removed them and put them back. Also, I trashed my old blue tooth device to then rediscover it. Still....no click response.

I have a MacBook Pro (early 2013) and am running OS X El Capitan (10.11.5). Don't know what else to do and hope someone can help me. It's very hard to work without a mouse button.

Any help is much appreciated....

Thank you Harris, that was my problem indeed.

Both, my magic mouse and a usb mouse that I had connected to my system were not working. I already thought I'd have ot reinstall my mountion lion. But your tip was right.

Using a remot desktop client, I opened the system preferences, klicked on bluetooth, only to find that indeed two magic mice were connected to my system. I deleted one and That resolved the issue instataniously. Both, my usual magic mouse and my usb mouse started working working properly again.

Thanks a lot man.

I have the same issue but none of my mice were held by bags or pressed by anything. The workaround was use the right click and space to log out of the current session and re-login. This fixed my problem. I agree that the problem is intermittent. Normal use such as checking email and browsing Internet would lead to the same issue. My current Mac OS is 10.11.6.

I had a similar issue where my mouse was moving but would not respond to clicking. It would also not make the cursor large when the mouse was shook, which is something that Apple had programmed to make it easier to find the cursor on screen. I am using a iMac OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.6 (27" 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7).

I had logged into the computer the day before using the Screen Sharing application on my Macbook Pro (macOS Sierra Version 10.12.5). To resolve the issue, I simply logged back into screen sharing on my Macbook Pro, then moved the cursor around, then moved it around on the iMac. At this point, I was able to left-click again on the iMac. Therefore, I signed out of share screening and it worked fine. Screen sharing on the Macbook Pro can be accessed by Macinthosh HD (or if you named your main hard drive something else) > System > Library > Core Services > Applications > Screen Sharing.

It is possible that if you could click on Bluetooth or Mouse preferences, then it would show that another device was still connected for the mouse. However, since I could not click on the iMac, this method resolved the issue.

Go to System Preferences>Mouse and make sure that the left click on the mouse is set to "Primary Button".

Do you get the interface with the video's etc? The primary button will only work on the old Apple mouses and not the Magic Mouse as the whole top of the mouse is a click. Does the mouse actually click physically and it just does not respond on the screen? Or will the top of the mouse not phsically click down?

I have the same problem. At the moment I am turning my mouse off and on again to continue working but the same happens after a period of time.

I have checked my system preferences also and everything seems to be in order. This is very frustrating.

Same experience here, been looking everywhere for a solution, just started happening late last week.

I've got a late 2008 mbp with the old apple wireless mouse connected via bluetooth. Mouse moves curson on screen, when the cursor is over a button it responds with the mouseover effect but it won't read the clicks. Even swapped out the mouse with same result. Hard reboot used to be a temp fix but even that stopped working, currently using the trackpad.

Same experience here, which started after an upgrade from OS X10.5.8 to 10.6.7. Trashed what I hoped would be the Apple USB mouse prefs at [Home]/Library/Prefs/com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist and rebooted. It worked, I rebooted again, and it still works.

I read in another thread or forum about the battery when (when warm) can expand and press against something that effects the mouse function? Anyway decided to remove the battery and noticed it is bulged and wasn't allowing the cover to go on correctly. Removed it and have been running the MBP with no mouse issues ever since. Works for me because I use it as a desktop with external monitor anyway but not a great solution if I actually needed it to be a laptop.

I suddenly had problems with the mouse click. Using the trackpad (buttons) or an external mouse didn't make a change, it just wouldn't click anymore. Also the the dock wouldn't appear when moving towards it. The arrow would move though...Pretty useless...

So I just tried the 'remove battery' hint and my MacBook Black worked like normal again. Battery is in perfect shape (no bendings). Then put the battery back, restarted and it's fine again... (don't know for how long) so thanks!