One of my gripes when I switched to using a Mac full time was that I could never get my mouse to track fast enough. Here is a solution that worked for me.
The maximum mouse speed on mac desktops is 3.0 (when maxed out in system preferences). I changed my speed to 5.0 for my 24″ iMac and it was noticeably better.
You may need to restart your mac to see the changes take effect.
Update Jan 2010 : This method also works with the new magic mouse as well.
Exactly what I need. Speed up my mouse. Just one problem. What is a terminal window? How do I get too it? Can you give me better instructions?
after setting the new mouse speed value, tru to logout and login back to reload configuration (works for me, after doing that). Gr8 tip tyler.
Did it have any heat issues?
That was a really cool idea putting the mini in the prius. Pretty sweet hack.
Just wanted to say thanks for the tip. It worked great for me with 10.6 and trying to make my new Magic Mouse usable.
Nice… Been looking for something like this. What exactly does the -g flag do though?
hey! That worked. I pushed it up to 7.0 and wow I don’t have to lift up the mouse anymore. Thanks.
Glad it worked for you, Dave.
Thanks so much Tyler! Works like a dream on my new 27″ iMac. Like B Dave said, it’s so nice to no longer have to pick the mouse up every ten seconds.
You’re welcome Jimmy. I am envious of your 27″ iMac!
Hint for others: I had to restart my iMac before it worked.
How is that terminal command used to see the value already there?
Never mind. Found it in terminal help and “man”.
Just substitute “write” with “read”.
Tnx for the tip anyway. It works perfectly.
Thanks for pointing that out Geo. I have updated the instructions to first read what the setting is before changing it.
Thanks a lot Tyler, this is exactly what I need. I changed the speed for both trackpad and mouse. But I have problems to keep this setting. It works perfectly and then it just goes back to 3 again..
Glad it worked for you Danny. Congrats on the 27″ iMac. Thats a great system!
Fantastic. It now works the way I want it. It was driving me nuts. Good to see others had the same problem too. I can’t work with a slow mouse. Thanks.
this works pretty well, thanks. do you know if there is a way to change the actual scale that is used in the systems setting dialog box for the mouse? i went back and found that it, in fact, is still using the old scaling and i can no longer use that to adjust the tracking speed once i have entered your command.
hi, i have a problem….
if i don’t switch on the mouse before starting my mac, my computer doesn’t recognize my mouse. and i have to go to system preferences to make my mac recognize it, but then my mouse returns to be slowly…. so i have to restart my computer again to work your terminal’s tip.
any ideas to my problem??
Thanks! I just got a new IMac and I was considering returning it because I am unhappy with the font size in the email and the mouse speed. Is there any way to also increase the size of words and numbers on the Internet or make them the same size one every page? I tried adjusting the resolution and size but everything would look good on one page but lousy on another page. Everything will either spread out too much or look like parts of the numbers or letters are clumped up. Will I also have the same problem with size if I get Word, Excel, or Access on the IMac? Will installing Windows have any effect?
iMac 27″ – works perfect with 5.0 after restart.
All you have to do is set it then logout and log back in.
Thanks! Exactly what I need.
Thanks for a nice tip. The question is, why it’s not possible to set mouse speed via mouse settings in GUI?
I’m looking for a way to speed up my typing on the Mac–this is the first web page I’ve come across that addresses anything like this. I’m coming from a PC environment where I work mostly with keyboard shortcuts, and for example will often use option+shift to select words and replace or otherwise manipulate them. However, on the Mac I’m really frustrated because I can’t work nearly as fast as I can on the PC–the actual typing speed (i.e., the rate at which my typing is registered on the screen) is slower than I’d like, and so is the process of selecting and cutting and pasting. In addition, when I’m working quickly, the cursor will often disappear entirely and I’ll have to stop for a few seconds and “find” it so I can keep track of what I’m doing.
Thanks man it’s really help!
Just bought a new iMac 2 weeks ago, first time I have Mac though.
Stressed about magic mouse, really slow in my opinion.
great tip. worked like a charm!!
It’s still way too slow! Is there anything I can do? I’m on Lion 10.7.3 beta and 10.7.2 retail. I need it about 50-100% faster (for speed chess).
You ROCK! I can’t believe Apple allows the terminal to do this and doesn’t give users the same ability. Come on, really? It’s like they want to handicap us to work just the way they like. Gots news for you Apple: ‘different’ isn’t always better!
Whoa! This is exactly what I have been looking for!!!! I have tried MagicPrefs and other apps to boost the tracking speed and nothing comes close to my personal preference (I really like the tracking high). SWEET COMMAND AND THANKS FOR MAKING MY MAGIC MOUSE WORK LIKE A CHAMP!
It appears that if you open the mouse settings in system prefs or mess with MagicPrefs (I recommend this tool if you use a Magic Mouse), the scaling reverts back to the default (which is 3 in my instance). I just had to open the terminal window again and reset my scaling to my desired speed.
Is there a way to prevent this from happening? One workaround is to not open either the mouse or MagicPrefs I guess.
Thanks for the tip, Tyler. I am a new Mac user and this is something hard for me to adjust to. Glad there is a way to change it.
Thank you too but the mouse speed getting fast after I logged in but before I logged my mouse as a dead. It works very slowly. Don’t you know way do make it before loge in?
it even doesn’t respond and trackpad too.
Looks great, just what I need but I get “command not found”. Made sure I entered correctly but same message. Any ideas?
after hitting enter I get “does not exist”.
What command returns the “does not exist” message, the read or the write?
I just admire how many great still limitations exist in MacOs! Awful!
Thanks. It worked great! I am using speed 4.0 and needed to restart my mac book pro.
great ” hack”! This definitly made my day!! much appreciation from the netherlands.
Worked without restarting the computer! 9 worked well for me. Only problem is now the fine movement is disproportionately slow, I guess there’s a setting for that too.
Thank you SO MUCH! IT WORKED! I upgraded my tracking speed from a maximum of 3.0 to 5.0 on my MacBook Pro 13″ running OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and it WORKS! You made a little bit of my life easier man, I have to work with long and large spreadsheets and this just makes it more convenient.
It was great first 15 sec and then suddenly vanished!please what should i do?my arm and back hurts because of stupid mighty mouse that so slow work…..
Worked great! Set mine to 5.0 and needed to restart.
Now we’re talking !!! Thanks for the fix, I love when things work out this way… you’re awesome brother.
Awesome! Thanks for that fix. Can’t think why anyone would want such a slow mouse.
Thank you so much Tyler. I just fixed up an old imac g5 that I hadn’t used since early 2009. I don’t mind the older browsers, the low ram, but I really did mind how damn slow the mouse moved, even at max tracking.
Interesting to see that Mac has a terminal, like dos inWindows. I had no idea this existed!
Thanks for the quick fix. Jumping over from Windows and the mouse speed was really bumping me.
Hi this is still working for me in OS X El Capitan. Which version are you using? You need to do this with an administrator account, perhaps that is your issue?
Tyler, this fixed it for me. First time Mac user and really getting into it.
Paul, Thanks for the comment. Glad it worked for you!
You man, you are genius !
This is wonderful. QUESTION: What is the MAX Terminal setting one can assign and notice an actual speed difference? 10? 100?
However my mouse is still slow as a snail. Any suggestions?
Very useful – worked like a charm! Went from 3 to 5 and the Magic Mouse (A1657) is soooo much faster on a mid-2015 15″ MBP (High Sierra). Makes working with multiple monitors possible. Thanks again!