How to move your mouse cursor without a mouse

Posted on June 26, 2008 at 5:13 am

Recently I wrote an article on how to right-click using your keyboard and I hope it was useful. But maybe your computer mouse is broken, or you left it at your Grandma’s house during your last visit, or your touchpad simply isn’t working. Whatever the reason, I’ve found out how to move your mouse using the keyboard.

It started when I lost my mouse, normal computing became very difficult and web browsing was close to impossible – unless, that is, I was prepared to mash the ‘tab’ button on every page.

So, here it is, a way to move your mouse cursor without a mouse.

Please check before you attempt to do this that you have a numeric keypad, as this is the only requirement for this. A numeric keypard resembles this:

Option 1: MouseKeys

Okay, so, the first way of doing this, is by using a feature that is built in by windows, called MouseKeys. To turn on MouseKeys, go on Control Panel, click on Accesibility Options, click on the tab that says Mouse, and check the ‘Use MouseKeys‘ box. Alternatively, you could turn on MouseKeys by pressing Left ALT + Left Shift + Num Lock at the same time. Please note that this only works with the LEFT alt and shift, as if you try it with the right side, it will not work.

Here are the controls, provided that you have a numeric keypad, to run MouseKeys.

2 = Move Down

8 = Move Up

4 = Move Left

6 = Move Right

7 = Move Diagonally Top Left

9 = Move Diagonally Top Right

1 = Move Diagonally Bottom Left

3 = Move Diagonally Bottom Right

5 = Simulate Mouse Single Left Click

(+) = Simulate Mouse Double Click

(-) = Simulate Mouse Right Click

(*) = Simulate Both Mouse Buttons Click At Once

If you’ve tried this, you may have noticed that the speed of the cursors is really slow. To speed this up, you just go into Settings, and change the speed.

Just drag the sliders along to the maximum speed and acceleration, and it should be absolutely fine.

Option 2: Mouse Emulator

Mouse Emulator works in a very similar way to mouse keys, except I find it slightly better, as it has a better diagonal moving control than MouseKeys. It’s a small and free program, only 10kb, downloadable here http://www.geocities.com/pronto4u/mouseemulator.html. It’s a simple, download and run program, so no installing needed.

Here are the controls for Mouse Emulator,

5 = Move Down

8 = Move Up

4 = Move Left

6 = Move Right

1 = Simulate Mouse Single Left Click

2 = Simulate Mouse Right Click

3 = Simulate Mouse Middle Click

7 – Mousewheel up (Scroll)

9 – Mousewheel down (Scroll)

CTRL + 0 – Enable/Disable Mouse Emulator

If you’re wondering where Mouse Emulator went after you ran the program, it should be in your toolbar, looking like this:

So, there you have it, two clean and effective ways of using your computer, even if your mouse has died.

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Comments

3 Responses to “How to move your mouse cursor without a mouse”

frank said on : September 16th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

como hago para mover el crusor sin el mouse ?

Vaishali said on : November 4th, 2008 at 6:48 am

Thanks a ton for the post dude….
god bless..

John said on : February 24th, 2009 at 6:10 pm

I uninstalled my ps/2 mouse driver during a wireless mouse install in Windows. Then I couldn’t move the cursor to restart my computer and enable the new wireless mouse to work. I was stuck! But I found your 6-26-08 instructions to enable MouseKeys (using another computer to search the Internet). Your instructions worked great and solved my troubles. Thanks! That’s a clever and useful tip.