How to Turn On Bluetooth When Your Mouse Is Not Connected

If you switch off Bluetooth you may find you have no way to turn it back on now that your mouse is disconnected. Here are several ways to switch it back on without a pointing device.

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Video Transcript: Did you switch off Bluetooth on your Mac and now can't turn it on again because you can't use your mouse or trackpad? This video is for you!
So you're probably watching this video because you're using a mouse with your Mac or perhaps an external trackpad and you've switched off Bluetooth. Now you can't seem to get it back on. First let me acknowledge your pain. You've switched off Bluetooth, perhaps like this, and now you can't use your trackpad or your mouse. The first thing you do is to connect your keyboard using the USB or Lightning Port there. You can turn your Bluetooth keyboard into a wired keyboard by doing that. Perhaps you've already figured that out. You can actually do the same with a Magic Trackpad. You can use the port here and connect it and then get Pointer control back and turn on Bluetooth. 
But let's say instead you're using a mouse. If you connect it with a cable it won't work as a wired mouse. Or perhaps you have a third party mouse that has no way to connect it as a wired mouse either. 
So now you've got the keyboard back because you've wired it to your Mac. You think now there would be a way to turn Bluetooth back on using just the keyboard. If I use Command Space, for instance, it brings up Spotlight and you can Search for Bluetooth. Then if you look at the results you'll see Bluetooth listed right there as the first item. But there is nothing you can do to actually turn that on. You have to actually click on it to do it and you can't click on it. You could go down to System Settings with a down arrow and Return and it takes you into System Settings to Bluetooth and there's the switch right there. If you use the Arrow Keys you can't get to it. If you use Tab you may just find you only go between a Search field and the Menu items below that. There's no way to get over to the switch. Although some of you may find this works. I'll explain that in a minute. 
Another thing that becomes frustratingly close is you can use the fn or Globe Key and C and it will bring up Control Center. But you can't use arrows or tabs or anything to get to the Bluetooth settings there to switch it on. 
Now the first thing you can do to turn Bluetooth on is to simply use Siri. If you've enabled Voice Command with Siri you might be able to issue your voice command like Hey, and then Siri, and then ask it to turn Bluetooth on. If we go into System Settings here and then I use the down arrow to go to Apple Intelligence & Siri I can see here that I've got a keyboard shortcut set for it. I can press either the Command Key twice, you may have something different like the Globe Key and S or a different key twice. You also can see next to Listen For what it is listening for. So using this information you can now activate Siri and ask it to turn Bluetooth on. You can speak to it or I have it set To Type to Siri, which I can use as well.  Siri says, Okay, I turned Bluetooth on. Now we're set. 
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So here's a second way to do it. Use Command Space to bring up Spotlight and Type Bluetooth again. Now notice in addition to having to use the switch there and the System Settings icon there's also an app, a little utility app that comes with your Mac called Bluetooth File Exchange. If I arrow down to that and I use Return to launch it, it's going to notice that Bluetooth is Off and it is going to ask if we want to turn it On as the default option. So pressing Return will actually turn On Bluetooth. Now that that's on we can Quit Bluetooth File Exchange and then I'm connected now with my trackpad and I can see that Bluetooth is on. 
Now remember when I mentioned that if you go to System Settings for Bluetooth so right here there is no way to get over to the switch. I hit Tab it just goes between Search and Bluetooth, like that. But some of you might find that it actually goes to the switch. The difference is a Setting. You go down into Keyboard here. There's a setting for Keyboard Navigation. If you have that turned On you have more keyboard navigation. Now this may get in the way with some apps, especially some games, so a lot of people will have this Off so you won't be able to do it. But if now I go to Bluetooth, like that. If I use Tab it will actually go over to the switch. As a matter of fact it will continue to go through all these different things. Here I can use Shift and Tab to go back. If I have the switch selected I can use the spacebar and it will try to switch the switch. In this case turning Bluetooth off. 
Now I'm going to turn this Off again and then I'm going to switch off Bluetooth and show you yet another way that you can turn it On. So your Mac has a special function called Accessibility Shortcut. What happens is it gives you access to different accessibility functions very easily. Now unless you've changed it from the defaults, you can use Option Command and the F5 key to turn On Accessibility Shortcut. It says that and then pauses to bring this up. Now you can use the Tab to go through all of these and it will actually speak to you and tell you which one it's over. So here you see I can turn on various things that can help me get Bluetooth back on. For instance, I can turn on Full Keyboard Access right here. I can just tab down to it like this (Full keyboard access unchecked.) Then Space to Check and then Return for Done. So now I'm going to use Spotlight, like this, and Search for Bluetooth and go to System Settings. I can use the Tab key and get all around in this screen here. Eventually I find myself right there with the switch. I can use the Spacebar to turn it On.   
So here's a fun way to do it. Use Voice Control. I'll check that, and I'll use Voice Control to do a series of clicks using the Grid. Show Grid. Choose Six. Choose Three. Click seven. Show Grid. Choose five. Choose fourteen. Click twenty-three. There I have enabled Bluetooth using my Voice to click twice to turn it On.  
By the way if for some reason Option Command and F5 isn't working for you to bring up the Accessibility Shortcut, well that's probably not a viable option. But for next time you want to check in System Settings and then go to Keyboard and then Keyboard Shortcuts and then look for Accessibility. There is shows Accessibility Controls Options Command 5. But you may have turned it off or assigned it to something else. 
So as you can see there are actually many different ways to turn Bluetooth back on even if you don't currently have a connected mouse or trackpad. Hope you find this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 13 Responses to “How to Turn On Bluetooth When Your Mouse Is Not Connected”

Sheldon

4 weeks ago

Thanks bunches

Björn Wahlsten

You are a genius! I have saved an old mouse and keyboard with wires.
They have always worked if a problem occurred.. Saludos/Björn

I saved an old mouse and keyboard with wires.
Saludos/Björn

Dan Beach

Eureka! What a great tip. I've been caught a couple of times without Bluetooth, and it is incredibly frustrating. Having a wired mouse handy, helps.

Nick Rich

Another option: keep a cheap USB wired mouse handy to use temporarily. I've also found this handy if the battery on the Magic Mouse runs down and stops it working.

Alan Driver

Although I haven't actually switched bluetooth off, this is really useful to know. Many thanks for posting

What a great tip, thank you very much

stan chaz

When I have turned bluetooth off accidentally on my iMac I find that even with connected trackpad and keyboard it does not respond, and I need to shut down my Mac to bring back bluetooth.

Gary Rosenzweig

stan: That's not normal. An Apple Magic Trackpad that is connected via a cable should work when Bluetooth is completely off. Same for a keyboard.

Theo Findwall

Great tips! But despite "Show Accessibility controls" being turned on in System Settings, pressing option command F5 has no effect. My web search turned up no mentions of this problem, so please forgive me for asking you. macOS Sonoma on a M2 Mac Studio.

Theo: Did you try adding the FN/🌐︎ key is addition, in case you have it set to need that?

John

3 weeks ago

I have a 2020 Mac mini with the M1 chip. There is no "system settings" option in the Apple menu, only "system preferences". Is this due to the model of Mac that I have or am I just being stupid by
doing something wrong/missing something obvious?

2 weeks ago

John: if you still see system preferences, not system settings, then it means you haven’t updated your Macs operating system in a while.