If you have more than one monitor, sometimes when you move your mouse to the edge of one screen, the mouse jumps to the monitor on the other side. Here’s how to change the mouse direction on your monitor when you have a setup with more than one monitor.
When you have two monitors, there is exactly a 50% chance that your computer will guess correctly which way they are arranged. On the computer gets it wrong, you can fix it easily enough. You just have to know where to look and what the computer calls the setting. Whether you have a Mac or a Windows PC, there is no setting for mouse direction, but there is a setting for multiple monitors. That’s the one you want.
Change the direction of the mouse on the monitor on Windows
Click the Windows logo in the lower left corner, or what we used to call the Start menu. From there, type rearrange multiple displays. You will see an applet by that name show up. Either click open or double click on the rearrange multiple displays applet. You will then be able to drag the monitors to the left or right, and you can also adjust their vertical position relative to each other if you find the mouse is jumping too much when you move from one monitor to the other.
This jumping happens most frequently when you have two monitors that are a different size and/or screen resolution. It may take a bit of trial and error to get the positioning just how you like it.
Change the direction of the mouse on a monitor on a Mac
On a Mac, click the Apple logo in the top left of either of your screens, then select System Settings. In the search field, type Arrange Multiple Displays. Click the Arrange Multiple Displays applet when it comes up in the search results, and then you can rearrange your displays to your liking so that the mouse goes to the monitor on the left when you move the mouse to the left and to the monitor on the right when you move the mouse to the right. Just like on Windows, you can adjust the vertical position of the two displays relative to each other if you find you’re not able to move the mouse between the two displays the way you would like.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.