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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.

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8 Answers

up vote 15 down vote accepted

Take a look at Mouse Acceleration Preference Pane.

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Nice 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. – TomA Jul 21 '09 at 19:18
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 Aug 25 '09 at 14:44
This now works with Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard. – Schnapple Feb 25 '10 at 6:04
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Yes, it works on Snow Leapard - without acceleration, defeating the purpose of the program. -1 for wasting my time. – amateur barista May 7 '11 at 2:15
Had the same problem especially when gaming Quake Live. Installed this app, killed the acceleration.. Winning! – Phliplip Jun 28 '11 at 5:48
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up vote 8 down vote

Try ControllerMate.

enter image description here

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This 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 May 7 '11 at 2:16
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up vote 5 down vote

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.

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up vote 4 down vote

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.

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+1 on the perfectionist note. MS wins this one. – TomA Oct 30 '11 at 1:44
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up vote 3 down vote

I've been looking for a solution for OSX 10.6, and haven't found one yet. I find the acceleration curve far too sharp - it's fine for quickly navigating to objects far away, but extremely slow for something fine grained like drawing a line or clicking a series of items a shortish distance from each other.

Yes, you can disable acceleration completely, but that's pretty unusable on a big display. I tried Mouse Acceleration Preference Pane and a couple of others, but ever since mac removed the acceleration API in 10.6, they don't have any workarounds.

It's such a pain :(

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This isn't an answer, as much as it sums up how I feel. – Johnny W Mar 5 at 15:40
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up vote 3 down vote

Decelerate on the Mac App Store

decelerate mac app

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this program is junk. I just wasted $.99. Make sure you read the reviews before you pay for this. – xaxxon Nov 2 '11 at 1:27
@xaxxon I don't want to waste $1 myself. Does it actually change the acceleration speed or just tracking speed like the sliders in System Preferences? – Lri Nov 2 '11 at 11:58
it changes them at the same time. Slow acceleration means slow tracking. I couldn't figure out how to separate them. – xaxxon Nov 6 '11 at 6:29
Ok, then it's probably just equivalent to defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.tracking -float or defaults write -g com.apple.trackpad.scaling -float. – Lri Nov 6 '11 at 9:57
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up vote 2 down vote

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.

enter image description here

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up vote 0 down vote

I use a Microsoft mouse on my Mac and the mouse speed/acceleration drove me nuts, too. Then I installed Microsoft's mouse driver and everything is acceptable. Unfortunately, it only works fine after been logged in.

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The asker states I tried getting a Microsoft mouse driver for OS X but it didn't work since my mouse is not from Microsoft., I think that renders your answer unhelpful in this case? – DMA57361♦ Oct 30 '11 at 10:31
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