Highlight the cursor in a Mac screen recording
macOS has no setting that puts a highlight around the cursor in a screen recording. What it does let you change is the pointer itself: in System Settings > Accessibility > Display, under Pointer, you can make it bigger and change its outline and fill colors, which makes it easier to follow in any video. For a colored circle that follows the pointer, the usual cursor highlight look, you need an app that draws one, such as the cursor halo in Typebar.
Below: why viewers lose the pointer, how to set up each option, and which to use for which kind of video.
Why viewers lose the pointer
On your own screen, the pointer is easy to track because your hand is moving it. Viewers have none of that. They see your display shrunk to a video window, often on a laptop or a phone, and a pointer at its standard size becomes a few pixels in a busy frame. Video compression softens it further when it moves fast.
Most “where did he click?” moments come from three things:
- The pointer is too small for the size the video is watched at.
- It is black and white, like most of the interface around it.
- It moves before the viewer has found it.
System Settings fixes the first two. The third is about how you move, which comes at the end.
Make the pointer bigger and change its colors
- Open System Settings and choose Accessibility in the sidebar.
- Click Display.
- Scroll down to the Pointer section.
- Drag the Pointer size slider from Normal toward Large. The pointer grows as you drag, so you can stop where it looks right.
- To recolor it, click the color next to Pointer outline color and pick a new one, then do the same for Pointer fill color.
- Reset Colors puts back the standard black pointer with a white outline.
For recording, a modest size increase usually works better than a huge one. The pointer should be easy to find without covering the button you are pointing at. A strongly colored fill with a white outline stands out against both light and dark windows.
Two cautions. These settings change the pointer everywhere, not only in your recordings, so note what you had and set it back afterwards if you prefer it. And recorders differ in how they capture the pointer, so make a ten-second test recording and check that the size and colors came through before you record anything long.
Shake to find the pointer, before you hit Record
In the same Pointer section, Shake mouse pointer to locate makes the pointer grow for a moment when you move the mouse quickly back and forth. It is on by default.
It is a tool for you, not your audience. It helps when you lose the pointer on a large display, or somewhere across two displays, just before you start talking. If you tend to move the mouse fast while you explain things, it can trigger by accident mid-sentence, and a pointer that suddenly balloons is a distraction. Turn it off for the session if that happens to you.
Add a halo that follows the pointer
A halo is a soft colored circle around the pointer. It is the clearest cursor highlight for video because it gives the eye a larger target without changing the pointer itself, and it moves with the pointer, so viewers never have to search for it.
macOS does not draw one. Typebar, a keyboard overlay for screen recordings and demos, has a cursor halo among its mouse effects: a circle follows the pointer, and because it is drawn on the screen, it appears in recordings made with the Screenshot toolbar, QuickTime Player, OBS or Loom, and in screen sharing.
The other mouse effects work alongside it:
- Click ripples, with a different shape for left, right and middle clicks.
- A drag trail, so a drag reads as one movement.
- Spotlight, which dims every display except a circle around the pointer, for moments when you want every eye in one place. It has its own shortcut: press it to turn the spotlight on or off, or hold it to show the spotlight only while you hold. Spotlight the pointer during a presentation on a Mac covers when that helps.
The halo, ripples and trail show while Typebar’s overlay, the keyboard, the pill or both, is on screen; the spotlight works on its own. Like any window, these effects are not part of a capture of one other app’s window, so record the full display or an area that includes them. Profiles keep mouse settings along with the rest of your setup, so a recording profile can have the halo on while your everyday one leaves it off.
The one highlight macOS does have: clicks
The only recording highlight built into macOS marks clicks, not the pointer. In the Screenshot toolbar (Command-Shift-5), with a record button selected, choose Options > Show Mouse Clicks, and each click draws a black circle around the pointer in the video. QuickTime Player’s File > New Screen Recording opens the same toolbar.
It marks the moment of a click, not where the pointer is in between, so it pairs well with a bigger pointer. How to show mouse clicks in a screen recording on a Mac has the details and its limits.
Which to use
| Option | What viewers see | Where you set it | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bigger pointer | The usual pointer, larger | System Settings > Accessibility > Display | Every recording, as a baseline |
| Pointer colors | A colored pointer | The same Pointer section | Standing out on light and dark windows |
| Show Mouse Clicks | A black circle on each click | ⇧⌘5 toolbar > Options | Quick clips made with the built-in recorder |
| Cursor halo | A circle that follows the pointer | Typebar | Tutorials where the pointer travels a lot |
| Spotlight | The screen dimmed except around the pointer | Typebar, with its own shortcut | Single “look here” moments |
A sensible setup for most tutorials: the pointer a bit bigger than normal, a halo or a colored fill, and clicks marked one way or the other.
Move the pointer like someone is watching
Settings make the pointer visible. How you move it decides whether viewers can follow:
- Move slowly and in straight lines. Fast, curved sweeps are where compression smears the pointer.
- Stop before you click. Let the pointer sit on the target for half a second so viewers arrive with it.
- Park it when you are talking about something else. A pointer wandering over the screen pulls the eye away from what you are saying.
- Do not circle things. Wiggling the pointer around an item reads as nervous. Stop next to it, or use a spotlight for a moment.
Questions
Does a bigger pointer show at that size in a recording?
It depends on how the recorder captures the pointer. Make a ten-second test recording and play it back at the size your viewers will watch.
Can I highlight the cursor only while I record?
macOS has no switch for that; pointer size and colors stay until you change them back. In Typebar, the halo shows only while the overlay shows, and the “Show when a screen recording starts” option in Settings > Recording can bring the overlay up by itself when a recording or screen share begins, and hide it when it stops.
Will viewers on a call see a halo?
Yes, if you share your entire screen. If you share a single window, the call sends only that window, and the halo, which Typebar draws in its own window, is not part of it.
Typebar is $9 once, and free for 24 hours with everything on.