Using the mouse with your left hand? Here’s how you can add a left-hand friendly mouse cursor to Windows. Left-hand mouse pointer.
If you look closely at the mouse pointer, it leans slightly to the right side. The default lean direction feels natural to the right-hand users. However, what if you are a left-hand user?
If you are lefty and like to use the mouse with your left hand, you might’ve noticed that there are no left-hand friendly mouse pointers in Windows 10 or 11. Sure, getting used to the right-hand mouse pointer is not hard. However, having left-hand friendly mouse pointers can help you feel at home.
Long back, Microsoft used to provide official left-handed mouse pointers. All you have to do is download the cursor package and add it to the cursor settings. However, Microsoft no longer offers left-handed mouse pointers.
That being said, I did some digging and found the package. So, without further ado, let me show you how to add left-handed mouse pointers to Windows 10 and 11 operating systems.
Related: How to create a right-hand alt-tab shortcut for left-hand mouse users
The steps below work the same in Windows 10 and 11.
Add Left Hand Mouse Cursor to Windows
To add left-handed mouse pointers to Windows, you have to download and install them. It is pretty easy to do. Let me show you how.
- Get the left-hand mouse pointers.
- Extract the ZIP file to a folder.
- Open the extracted folder.
- Open the “Normal” folder.
- Select and copy all the cursor files.
- Go to the “C:\Windows\Cursors” folder.
- Paste the copied cursors.
- Open the Start menu.
- Search and open “Mouse Settings.”
- Click “Additional mouse settings.”
- Go to the “Pointers” tab.
- Select the “Normal Select” option.
- Click “Browse.”
- Select the left arrow cursor.
- Press the “Open” button.
- Do the same thing for all other cursors.
- Press the “Save as” button.
- Name the cursor style whatever you want.
- Ensure the pointer style is selected in the dropdown menu.
- Press the “Ok” button.
- With that, you’ve added left-hand mouse cursors to Windows.
Steps with more details:
Download left-hand mouse pointers.
You first need to follow the above link and download the lefty mouse pointers ZIP file. After downloading, extract the ZIP file to a folder of your choice.
Now, open the extracted folder. You will see three different folders that contain three different sizes of left-hand mouse pointers. In most cases, the normal-sized mouse pointers are good enough. If you are looking for bigger pointers, you can use the ones in the large or extra-large folders.
A quick tip: If you use a high DPI monitor, I recommend using Large or Extra Large pointers.
Open the Normal folder and copy the cursor files in it. Next, paste them into the C:\Windows\Cursors
folder. You can do the same thing with the Large and Extra Large cursor files if you want.
Next, open the Start menu, search for “Mouse Settings,” and click on it.
On the Mouse Settings page, click the “Additional mouse options” link under the Related Settings section.
The above action will open the old mouse settings window. Go to the “Pointers” tab.
Here, select the “Normal Select” mouse pointer under “Customise” and click the “Browse” button.
In the selection window, find the cursor, select it, and click the “Open” button.
Do the same thing for the following mouse cursor types. Since the selection window shows a small preview of the cursor item, it should be easy to select the right ones.
- Help Select
- Working in Background
- Busy
- Handwriting
- Link Select
In case you are wondering, you can ignore other pointer items on the list as they are “side agnostic” or very rarely used.
Once you’ve changed the cursor styles, this is how it looks in the settings window.
Click the “Save As” button under the “Scheme” heading. This option allows us to save the changes as a new cursor style instead of overwriting the existing one.
Name the new cursor style and click “Ok.” In my case, I’m just adding “Left” to the default name. You can name it anything you want.
Windows will save the cursors with the new name and automatically changes the pointer to the new style. Click on the “Ok” button in the main window.
Wrapping Up
That is it. From now on, Windows will show the left-handed mouse pointer.
If you ever want to restore the default right-handed mouse pointer, select “Windows Default (System Scheme)” from the “Scheme” drop-down and click the “Ok” button. This will restore the default mouse pointer.
That is all. It is that simple to add left-hand mouse cursors to Windows.
I hope this simple and easy Windows how-to guide helped you.
If you are stuck or need help, send an email, and I will try to help as much as possible.
If you like this article, check out how to change the mouse pointer color and size in Windows 10 and 11.
After starting my new computer with Windows 10, I had to recognize that there are no left-handed mouse pointers and I fished for my old left-handed cursors.
Now I found your wonderful recommendable instructions. Thanks.
Thank you for this! Now I can use this mouse without feeling like my shoes are on the wrong feet.