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Zoom window does not follow mouse cursor

In System Preferences>Accessibility>Zoom I have Picture-in-picture as the zoom style with the options "Window position: Follow mouse cursor" "Hold ctrl alt to temporarily toggle zoom". However, whenever I trigger zoom by ctrl alt or by the keyboard shortcut the zoom window appears but freezes in place and does not follow the mouse cursor (I use the trackpad not a mouse). It always worked for the past 4 years but recently for no reason it stopped working. I tried turning it on and off, trying different configurations but no avail. I'm not sure if this change was right after I upgraded to Mojave or awhile after. Is this a bug or is anyone aware of 3rd party apps causing this? And is there a known solution to this issue?


I have a Macbook Pro, Mid 2014 with macOS Mojave 10.14.6.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Oct 26, 2019 5:34 AM

Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 27, 2019 6:04 AM

Thank you! Regarding your first point, there is only a "Follow mouse cursor" option in the options button in the Zoom pane. The one in the main Accessibility pane when the Zoom item is selected is rather "Zoom follows the keyboard focus". What solved my problem is changing the Zoom style to Full screen then changing the options for Full screen to follow mouse cursor and finally changing the Zoom style back to Picture-in-picture (making sure that follow mouse cursor is also enabled in PIP options too). Thanks again!

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 27, 2019 6:04 AM in response to dot.com

Thank you! Regarding your first point, there is only a "Follow mouse cursor" option in the options button in the Zoom pane. The one in the main Accessibility pane when the Zoom item is selected is rather "Zoom follows the keyboard focus". What solved my problem is changing the Zoom style to Full screen then changing the options for Full screen to follow mouse cursor and finally changing the Zoom style back to Picture-in-picture (making sure that follow mouse cursor is also enabled in PIP options too). Thanks again!

Oct 26, 2019 9:06 AM in response to Community User

There are two places to set the "Follow mouse cursor" - did you set them both to "Follow mouse cursor"? One is in the main Accessibility pane when the Zoom item is selected, and the other is in the "Options" button for that same pane. Make sure you have both set to "Follow mouse cursor" if that's you choice.


If that doesn't help, try changing to "Full Screen" mode instead of PIP -- does that mode follow mouse cursor? Then try to reselect the PIP mode and make sure the Options button settings also say "Follow mouse cursor" again.


Good luck...

Zoom window does not follow mouse cursor

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