macOS defaults

Appearance

Acceleration ​

Enable or disable mouse acceleration.

By default, macOS has mouse acceleration enabled, which causes the cursor to move less when you slowly move the mouse, and much more when you move the mouse faster.

The underlying acceleration curve (which determines how much movement you get at any given mouse speed) is not customizable without third party tools.

⚠️ A restart of your Mac is required to apply these changes.

  • Tested on macOS:
    • Sonoma
  • Parameter type: bool

Requirements ​

This setting was introduced in macOS 14 Sonoma.

Disable mouse acceleration ​

Disabling mouse acceleration can be preferable for gaming, because it's more amenable to building muscle-memory.

bash
defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.linear -bool "true"

Enable mouse acceleration (default value) ​

Turning on mouse acceleration can be preferable if you have limited desk space for mouse movements, and need to cover a large screen area.

bash
defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.linear -bool "false"

Read current value ​

bash
defaults read NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.linear

Reset to default value ​

bash
defaults delete NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.linear

Set value from UI ​

  1. Access Mouse settings from macOS UI
  2. Open the Advanced panel
  3. Toggle "Pointer acceleration" value