Make the Mac pointer bigger and easier to find

To make the pointer bigger on a Mac, open System Settings, choose Accessibility, then Display, and drag the Pointer size slider toward Large. In the same Pointer section you can change the pointer’s outline and fill colors, and turn on Shake mouse pointer to locate, which makes the pointer grow for a moment when you shake the mouse. All three work in every app, and none needs anything installed.

Below: each setting step by step, a few other ways to stop losing the pointer, and what changes when you record or share your screen.

Make the pointer bigger

1. Open System Settings from the Apple menu.
2. Choose Accessibility in the sidebar.
3. Click Display.
4. Scroll down to the Pointer section.
5. Drag the Pointer size slider from Normal toward Large.

The pointer changes size as you drag, and the new size applies at once, in every app. There is nothing to save; it stays until you move the slider back.

Where to stop depends on the screen. On a laptop, slightly past Normal is often enough to stop hunting for it. On a large external display, or a TV across the room, you can go much further. The limit is the job the pointer does: at the largest sizes it starts to cover the buttons and text you are pointing at. The point that clicks is still the tip, so precise clicks work the same, but you can see less of what is under it.

Change the pointer’s colors

The standard pointer is black with a white outline, which disappears easily against dark windows and busy photos. In the same Pointer section:

1. Click the color next to Pointer outline color and pick a new one.
2. Click the color next to Pointer fill color and pick a new one.
3. To go back to black and white, click Reset Colors.

A strongly colored fill, such as red or blue, with a white outline is easy to spot on both light and dark backgrounds. Avoid a fill close to your desktop picture or the apps you use most, and avoid an outline that matches the fill, which removes the edge that makes the shape readable.

Find the pointer with a shake

Shake mouse pointer to locate is in the same section, and it is on by default. Move the mouse quickly back and forth, or move a finger quickly back and forth on the trackpad, and the pointer grows for a moment, then shrinks back.

It is the quickest fix for “where did it go?” on a large display or across two displays, and it costs nothing when you are not using it. If it triggers when you do not want it to, for example in a game or when you move the mouse fast while drawing, turn it off in the same place.

Other ways to stop losing the pointer

A few more settings help, especially with more than one display:

• Arrange your displays to match your desk. In System Settings > Displays, arrange the displays so their positions match where they actually sit. When the arrangement is wrong, the pointer leaves one screen at an edge you are not looking at.
• Lower the tracking speed. If the pointer crosses the screen faster than your eye follows, lower Tracking speed in System Settings > Mouse, or in Trackpad under Point & Click.
• Zoom in when you need detail. Zoom, in System Settings > Accessibility > Zoom, magnifies the area around the pointer. Its shortcuts do nothing until you turn on Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom in that pane; then Option-Command-8 (⌥⌘8) turns zoom on and off.

What changes when you record or share your screen

Pointer size and colors are a setting of your Mac, not of your recorder, and they apply to the real pointer. That has a few consequences when other people are watching:

• Viewers need a bigger pointer than you do. They see your screen shrunk to a video window, often on a phone, so a pointer that looks fine to you can be a few pixels to them. A size a bit past Normal is a good baseline for tutorials.
• Test before a long recording. Recorders capture the pointer in their own ways. Make a ten-second test recording and check the size and colors at the size your viewers will watch.
• Set it back afterwards, if you prefer a smaller pointer for everyday work.

For viewers, a marker around the pointer often reads better than an enormous pointer, because it adds a target without hiding what is underneath. Typebar, a keyboard overlay for screen recordings and demos, has a cursor halo, a circle that follows the pointer; click ripples, with a different shape for left, right and middle clicks; and a spotlight that dims every display except a circle around the pointer. They are drawn on the screen, so they appear in recordings and screen shares that capture the whole display. The halo and ripples show while Typebar’s keyboard or pill is up; the spotlight has its own shortcut and works without them.

Profiles in Typebar keep a whole setup, mouse effects included, and switch from the menu, a shortcut, or by the app in front, so your recording setup can have the halo on while your everyday one leaves it off. Cursor halo, ripple or spotlight: which one fits your video helps you choose between them, and Highlight the cursor in a Mac screen recording covers the recording side in more detail.

Questions

Why does my pointer suddenly get huge when I move the mouse?

That is Shake mouse pointer to locate. It is on by default. Turn it off in System Settings > Accessibility > Display, under Pointer, if you would rather it never happened.

How do I put the pointer back to normal?

Drag the Pointer size slider back to Normal and click Reset Colors, both in System Settings > Accessibility > Display.

Will a bigger pointer show at that size in my screen recordings?

That depends on how the recorder captures the pointer, so test it: record ten seconds, then play it back at the size your viewers will see.

Can I make the pointer bigger only while presenting?

macOS has no automatic switch; the size stays until you change it. If you present often, a bigger pointer plus a spotlight for the “look here” moments is easier on the room than a giant pointer all day. Spotlight the pointer during a presentation on a Mac covers that.

Typebar is $9 once, and free for 24 hours with everything on.