How To Use Your Mac If Your Keyboard, Mouse or Trackpad Isn't Working

How can you type on your Mac if you keyboard isn't working or is missing? How can you control the cursor to click on things if your mouse or trackpad is not working? There are methods to type and point that you can use in an emergency or until you get a replacement. You can bring up the Accessibility Keyboard to type using the cursor, and use Mouse Keys to move to cursor using only the keyboard. The trick is to know how to bring those up when things aren't working.

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Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can type on your Mac without the keyboard and control the cursor without a mouse or trackpad.
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So what happens if your keyboard breaks. How can you type on your Mac at least just temporarily until you get a new keyboard. There is a way to do that. Then also what happens if your trackpad or mouse is broken. Well there's actually a way to control the cursor using just the keyboard. Both of these techniques are good to know in an emergency.
The easier problem to deal with is if your keyboard isn't working. All you have is your mouse or your trackpad but you need to be able to type something. So go to the Apple Menu, System Preferences. In there go to Keyboard and turn on Show Keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar. When you do that you'll get this Menu Bar icon here. You can click on it and say Show Keyboard Viewer. You should get this floating keyboard here that now you can use to type. You can also have brought it up by going to Accessibility and then Keyboard and then turning on the Accessibility Keyboard.
Now if you don't see a keyboard here perhaps you've setup some custom panels. You can do various different panels here. Click on the little Settings icon here and you can see Custom Panels. You can go with Keyboard ANSI to see the standard keyboard or you may have other ones there as well. You also have tons of options here if you need to use this for an extended period of time. You can change the appearance. You can make it semitransparent. You can change what the Toolbars are. You can have it Fadeout if you're not using it. All sorts of different things like that.
Once you have the keyboard setup you can type anything. It just takes a little bit longer but it works in an emergency. 
So typing using the cursor is an easy solution. What's harder is if you don't have a pointing device. You only have a keyboard. Then you're going to have to turn on something called Mouse Keys. Doing that without actually having a mouse or a trackpad is pretty tough. But there's always a way. Now the first thing to try is you may already have something set where you can press the Option key five times to turn on Mouse Keys. Mouse Keys are what will allow you to control the cursor with the keyboard. So try hitting the Option key quickly five times. If you see that you know you've got it.
Now you can use Mouse Keys to control the cursor. So you can use the U key to go to the left, the O key to go to the right, K to go down, and 8 to go up as well as the keys diagonally out from i to go in a diagonal direction. If you hold down a key it will move faster. To turn it off just hit the Option key five times again. But what if you didn't have that setup before? Hitting the Option key five times doesn't work.
You can use Option Command and then F5 to bring up Accessibility options. Now you can use the Tab key to go to Enable Mouse Keys. Hit the spacebar to check it and now Mouse Keys is turned on. Now you can use those same keys on the keyboard to control the cursor.
What if neither of these two ways of accessing Mouse Keys works. That means that you've got both keyboard shortcuts turned off. You're going to have to get into System Preferences in order to turn one of those on. One way to do that is to use the Control key, not Command but Control and the F2 key to put focus on the Menu Bar. Then you can actually control things with the arrow keys. But often this doesn't work. A lot of people report that it doesn't work. Sometimes it's just that you have to hit the fn key in order for F2 to really be F2. Other times it just doesn't work at all. 
A more reliable way to get to the Menu Bar is to use Command and Shift and then the key with the question mark on it. This will go to the Help menu here. But notice that the Help menu is selected. Now I can use the left arrow to go over to the Apple Menu, the down arrow to go to System Preferences, and then Return to go into System Preferences. Now I want to Search because you can see the blinking cursor is already in Search. I want to search for Shortcuts and I want to go down to Keyboard Shortcuts and hit Return. 
Now this takes me to the Keyboard System Preferences. But importantly it goes directly into Shortcuts. If you just search for Keyboard then you'd end up in the Keyboard section of this. You wouldn't be in Shortcuts. Now I can Tab again and again to get to the left side. Arrow down to Accessibility and then Tab again to get to the Options. Now I can arrow down. Here's where I can turn on the Show Accessibility Controls keyboard shortcut if it isn't already on. Just hit the spacebar and now it's checked. Now Option Command 5 will work.
So no matter how you do it once you've got Mouse Keys on you want to make sure you go to System Preferences and then under Accessibility and Pointer Control, go to Alternate Control Methods and click Options. Then make sure you have Press Option key five times to toggle Mouse Keys because this is by far the easiest way to toggle them on and off. It's important to be able to toggle them Off because you can't type with them On. So if you want to be able to move the cursor around using the keyboard toggle it Off. Type. Then switch them back on very easily.
Apple's got this handy page with more information about using the Mouse Keys. It includes charts here to show you which keys go in which direction. Also notice that if you have a numeric keypad you can use that to control the cursor as well. There are special keys for controlling clicks. So i on the regular keyboard and 5 on the numeric keypad are for clicking. Using zero on the keypad or M on the regular keyboard are for holding the mouse and for releasing the mouse you use period. Also note there's an additional shortcut for turning On Mouse Keys if your Mac has Touch ID. You can just press it three times. 
Of course keep in mind even if you're using a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse you can still plug a USB keyboard or mouse into your Mac and just about any USB keyboard or mouse will do. So maybe you've got one in the closet or you can borrow one from a friend or neighbor until you can get a replacement.

Comments: 6 Responses to “How To Use Your Mac If Your Keyboard, Mouse or Trackpad Isn't Working”

Ken Vignona

5 years ago

While playing around with these controls (keyboard and mouse keys) my pointer arrow has transformed into a hand with a finger rather than just he arrow icon, but when I go into tool bar at top it returns to the arrow icon. Any suggestions to keep the pointer as an arrow icon. Always great information. Ken

Gary Rosenzweig

Ken: Not sure what could have happened to change the cursor like that. Likely switching apps or logging out and back in will fix it.

Jasper

As you say, I’ve often noticed that ⌃ f2 fails to focus on the Menu. I’d found it easy to remember to select ⌃ f3, which focuses on the dock, then try ⌃ f2 again. This 2nd attempt has always worked for me in focussing on the Menu.

Jasper: I find the same. But what does always work is Command+Shift+/ (question mark). It takes me to the Help menu, but then you can use arrows to navigate to other menus.

Chris

Do any of these Accessibility functions work during the initial macOS setup after a format? I have lost mouse use in the past and could not set up the computer with the keyboard alone.

Chris: I think you'll need some sort of pointing device. Any USB mouse would do.

Comments Closed.

How To Use Your Mac If Your Keyboard, Mouse or Trackpad Isn't Working

Comments: 6 Responses to “How To Use Your Mac If Your Keyboard, Mouse or Trackpad Isn't Working”

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