45
21
The mouse acceleration on Mac OS X is driving me nuts. It may work for touchpads but nothing beats the Windows' acceleration curves. Is there a way to modify the behaviour on OS X? I tried getting a Microsoft mouse driver for OS X but it didn't work since my mouse is not from Microsoft.
Tomas Andrle
Posted 2009-07-16T09:36:14.227
Reputation: 2 892
25
Take a look at Mouse Acceleration Preference Pane.
seb
Posted 2009-07-16T09:36:14.227
Reputation: 466
19
Another new option is SmoothMouse. Its work on Mountain Lion and supports the Magic Mouse. Some folks are quite happy with it (discussion). I'm personally still deciding (but already think its better than standard OSX).
studgeek
Posted 2009-07-16T09:36:14.227
Reputation: 1 805
Just confirming that it is works fine in10.10 – alexeit – 2015-05-04T02:37:41.307
Very good utility - unfortunately conflicts with Karabiner which is more important (for me) - it would be possible for the authors to fix that issue though
– cwd – 2015-05-09T11:34:24.030On mac when you move the mouse slower, the speed is not constant, it bugs me a lot, this one was what I was looking for, thanks! – miguelmpn – 2016-03-28T21:49:21.570
I have a Logitech MX Performance mouse and tried a few programs including this and Mouse Acceleration Preference Pane (from @seb's answer). This program is spot on for replicating how a mouse handles on both a windows and linux (ubuntu 14.04) environment.
– JesseBuesking – 2016-10-18T16:27:41.4801
SmoothMouse is now discontinued from macOS Sierra onward. Given that Apple fixed mouse lag a year ago, the author recommends using ControllerMate to set a custom acceleration curve. Unfortunately they don't provide a config containing such a curve.
– JamesGecko – 2016-11-05T20:53:29.193Just installed it, and having bought a few other options, I think I finally found my solution in this free application. Its Windows mouse curve emulation works great, and after firing up Quake3 arena on mac, I made some jumps I was not able to make until now.
One additional note is that it apparently also corrects the mouse lag in OS X... and all this as of OS X 10.8 – Marius – 2013-08-23T01:57:57.517
12
To turn off mouse acceleration entirely, run the following in the terminal:
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1
This made it feel pretty Windows-y to me. Love Apple's trackpads, but the mouse settings are full of fail.
To turn mouse acceleration back on, change anything in the mouse preference pane, or run the command again with 1 instead of -1.
Andrew
Posted 2009-07-16T09:36:14.227
Reputation: 121
oh god, thank you lord! I wasn't even sure I needed it but my dear God, this is a huge difference. – Blub – 2014-10-13T06:05:22.010
Oh, thank you very much!!! That weird acceleration was driving me crazy... – BrunoJCM – 2015-07-16T16:11:05.030
I liked defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling 9 the best for the Magic Mouse 2 – Gabriel Staples – 2017-12-06T19:38:08.250
I think this is ok if you only have a one, smaller display. With multiple big displays you really need some sort of acceleration. – studgeek – 2012-07-07T23:42:12.207
10
Try ControllerMate.
Alexis Hirst
Posted 2009-07-16T09:36:14.227
Reputation: 1 121
1This is the most unusable program I've used in my life. The interface is so bloated (it looks almost like Photoshop), that I never was able to open the acceleration settings. -1 for wasting my time. – amateur barista – 2011-05-07T02:16:00.780
7
I may sound extreme, but I connect my mouse to a small, quiet, Windows laptop and use synergy with the mac as a client. This works well for me.
None, and I repeat, none (I've tried all of them) of the available OS X mouse mods out there actually get your mouse to behave like it does on Windows. They just get you a little closer. Furthermore, regardless of the acceleration curve, OS X has a defect that causes many mice to make erratic jumping movements (apparently this is fixed in OSX Lion...) and no available software (except for OSX Lion) addresses it.
Synergy is not a great solution, but it is a solution. In particular you should not run it over wifi and instead use as direct of an ethernet connection as possible to reduce the latency. Also a bummer is that sometimes my cursor disappears, and I have to switch apps with cmd+tab in order to restore it.
As much as a perfectionist as Steve Jobs was, the cursor tracking on OS X unfortunately eluded his attention. The only solution is to actually use Windows, hence synergy.
Yetanotherjosh
Posted 2009-07-16T09:36:14.227
Reputation: 372
1+1 on the perfectionist note. MS wins this one. – Tomas Andrle – 2011-10-30T01:44:21.963
A very creative approach :). – studgeek – 2012-12-13T20:51:55.580
6
Try SteerMouse
Don't be put off by the slightly naff website, this is the best one I've found available for Lion. You can download a trial - definitely worth a purchase though.
Just set the tracking speed to 0 and set the sensitivity to whatever feels normal for your mouse.
Mikey
Posted 2009-07-16T09:36:14.227
Reputation: 521
1I've been using this for some time now, however, it does not emulate Windows mouse curve. SmoothMouse (as already mentioned in this thread) does a better job. But this application does have some handy button remapping. – Marius – 2013-08-23T02:01:04.747
0
If you have a Microsoft Mouse, you can use IntelliPoint acceleration, which is like Windows.
After disabling SIP, you can still install and use Microsoft IntelliPoint v305 on MacOS 10.13.6. You may need to restart after installing the driver, for a total of 3 restarts (1 to disable SIP, 1 to get back into MacOS, 1 after driver is installed).
I find that you also need to activate the Microsoft Mouse preference pane after the computer restarts.
You can do this with an AppleScript, built as a .app, set to run at login:
tell application "System Preferences"
activate
set the current pane to pane id "com.microsoft.microsoftmouse"
delay 1
if application "System Preferences" is running then
tell application "System Preferences" to quit
end if
end tell
MacOS updates or clearing PRAM may interfere with the driver. You can tell if it's working by verifiying it shows a picture of your mouse instead of a picture of a USB cable being inserted.
If the driver fails to show the image of the mouse, you may have to:
Charlie
Posted 2009-07-16T09:36:14.227
Reputation: 450
0
The command line version of mousefix/iMouseFix continues to work for me on 10.8 (also worked on 10.7 and 10.6) with the Apple MagicMouse and MacBook trackpad (some of the other suggested solutions don't work for the MagicMouse).
I can quickly move the mouse between displays, but also do fine work with a setting of 3.5 on 10.8 and 8 on 10.6.
To use download mousefix.tbz2 from http://code.google.com/p/mousefix-10-6/downloads/list. Then run it on the command line:
mousefix 8
Once you have the right setting, just added it to your ~/.profile as they suggest in the README
FYI, The binary download is mousefix.tbz2 at http://code.google.com/p/mousefix-10-6/downloads/list.
studgeek
Posted 2009-07-16T09:36:14.227
Reputation: 1 805
This now works with Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard. – Tom Kidd – 2010-02-25T06:04:33.967
Anyone have the exact settings? maybe its best to use based on personal preference. I've set mine to 2.6x, which is arbitrary, but I'm liking it a lot more than without the this prefPane. I will also note, I am using a 1080p monitor, i think there are others commenting on screen size makes a difference. – Nick – 2015-12-21T17:05:12.617
1Yes, it works on Snow Leapard - without acceleration, defeating the purpose of the program. -1 for wasting my time. – amateur barista – 2011-05-07T02:15:35.537
Although I'm a new Mac user, I've read that it was more like Windows in OS 9 and earlier. For some reason they thought it would be helpful to have this bizarre scheme in OS X. Still, we are talking about a company that thinks the Mighty Mouse is a good idea - even most Mac fanatics hate that! – U62 – 2009-08-25T14:44:32.453
Had the same problem especially when gaming Quake Live. Installed this app, killed the acceleration.. Winning! – Phliplip – 2011-06-28T05:48:47.747
Yes, without acceleration I found this worthless. Note that is Apple's fault for removing the API rather than the developers. I switched to mousefix (see my other answer). – studgeek – 2012-07-07T23:41:13.517
2Nice to see a free Mac app. Also tried steermouse but didn't find an ideal program for this to be honest. I think Apple really should copy the MS Windows acceleration algorithm. – Tomas Andrle – 2009-07-21T19:18:23.807