MacBook Pro touchpad doe not shake the cursor

Question

MacBook Pro touchpad doe not shake the cursor

Sierra has a nifty feature if you shake the mouse or shake your finger on touch pad it will enlarge the cursor momentarily....making it much easier to find the cursor if you don't see it right away. This works on my older iMac with bluetooth TouchPad and bluetooth Mouse. On the MacBook Pro, I have some difficulties. Initially (on login screen) bluetooth Mouse doesn't appear to work, however it does, once logged in, and shaking it enlarges the cursor. On the internal TouchPad, shaking finger does not enlarge the cursor, also dragging doesn't work half the time (haven't figured out the trick nor can I find documentation on dragging for that internal TouchPad). I already checked the only Shaking box I could find, in Mouse preferences. There doesn't appear to be a separate one for TouchPad that I can find (either in Accessibility or TouchPad preferences). So, what am I missing? How can I make the TouchPad shake the cursor?

MacBook Pro TouchBar and Touch ID, macOS Sierra (10.12.5)

Posted on Jun 19, 2017 7:35 AM

Reply

Answer 1

tjk

Level 9

51,192 points

Jun 26, 2017 9:40 AM in response to sweetpeakc1sp

Yes, SMC reset is safe. It is a normal method of troubleshooting and sometimes fixing an issue.

There is no way of knowing if it will work until it is tried. Personally, I doubt if it will resolve the issue, but it's what I would try with my own machine.

You can instead bring the Mac to an Apple Store “genius” bar for a free diagnosis: https://support.apple.com/contact

Reply

Answer 2

Jun 26, 2017 6:33 AM in response to tjk

I reviewed the SMC suggestion. I have to say I am uncomfortable with resetting the SMC. Is this a safe procedure? What is the likelihood that this will actually resolve this "shaking" problem? I'm getting more adept at using a Mac, so I need the "shaking" less....my eyesight isn't getting any better, though.... I changed the side of the cursor to a larger icon so it is easier to find.

...the woes of getting old....I used to have 20/15 eyesight (per my eye doctor)...not any more...

Oh, and I figured out the drag problem...too bad Apple chooses not to document how drag works...all the other gestures are documented...

Reply

Answer 3

Jun 26, 2017 4:30 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Grant, your picture is nice, and helpful if I were a total newbie....but I already knew that and in fact stated that in my first post on this: " I already checked the only Shaking box I could find, in Mouse preferences. There doesn't appear to be a separate one for TouchPad that I can find (either in Accessibility or TouchPad preferences)."

There is something else wrong. It WORKS with a Mouse, it does NOT work with the builtin Touchpad on the MacBook Pro that I just received. It also works correctly with both mouse and touchpad of the old 2010 iMac that I have running macOS Sierra.

I will try the SMC reset in the next couple of days or so (too busy for 48 hours).

Reply