Cannot find the mouse cursor? Follow these steps to enable the ripple effect on the button press to locate the missing mouse pointer.
Windows uses white color with a black border for its default mouse cursor. On a large screen or on a multi-monitor setup, it can be sometimes hard to find where the mouse cursor is. This is especially true when there are multiple windows or when you are writing. Often, you might spend a little more time than you’d like to accept just to find where the mouse pointer is located.
Thinking of this exact situation and to aid in terms of ease of access, Windows has a neat feature that shows a ripple effect around mouse cursor when you press the Ctrl key. This makes it easy to locate the mouse cursor no matter how big your screen is or how many monitors you have. In this quick post, let me show you the process of enabled the ripple effect accessibility feature to easily locate the mouse pointer in Windows 10.
The steps shown below will work in Windows 7 and 8 too.
Steps to Highlight Mouse Cursor with Ripple Effect
These are the steps you should follow to enable the ripple effect to make mouse pointer easy to locate.
- Open the Start menu.
- Click on the “Settings” icon on the left side to open the Settings app.
- In the Settings app, go to the “Devices → Mouse” page.
- Click on the “Additional mouse options” link under Related Settings.
- Go to the “Pointer Options” tab in the Mouse Properties window.
- Select “Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key” checkbox.
- Click “Apply” and “Ok” buttons to changes.
That is all. From now on, to locate the mouse pointer, just press the Ctrl key on your keyboard. Whenever you do that, Windows highlights the mouse cursor with a simple ripple effect around it. This makes it easy to locate the mouse pointer. You can see how it looks like in the GIF image below.
Disable Mouse Cursor Ripple Effect
If you no longer need the ripple effect around the mouse pointer or if it is too distracting, you can disable it. Here are the steps to do that.
- Open the Settings app.
- Go to the “Devices → Mouse” page.
- Click on the “Additional mouse options“.
- Go to the “Pointer Options” tab.
- Uncheck the “Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key” checkbox.
- Save changes by clicking on the “Ok” button.
That’s it. This will disable the ripple effect and you will no longer see it when you press the Ctrl key. If you ever need the feature again, you can simply go through the same steps as shown in the first section.
I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article, check out how to highlight the mouse cursor with a yellow background for presentations or screen recording.
