Turn off mouse acceleration — via Yann Bertrand, macos-defaults.com

Hidden settinglow riskmacOS 14 Sonoma and later

macOS speeds the pointer up when you move a mouse quickly, so the same hand movement can land in different places. Gamers and designers often prefer it off, so a given movement always moves the pointer the same distance. Apple added a proper switch in macOS Sonoma.

Takes effect right away

The easy way

The easy way: System Settings > Mouse, click Advanced and turn off Pointer acceleration.
Or in Terminal run the command, then restart your Mac.

Command

Run in Terminal (Applications › Utilities).

defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.linear -bool true

Undo

defaults delete NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.linear

This is for mice, not the trackpad. You may want to raise the Tracking speed slider afterwards.

Sources

Acceleration — by Yann Bertrand, macos-defaults.com

Source reviewed: 2026-11-02
Link checked: 2026-11-02
Tested hands-on: Not by Oddbyte.Me

Oddbyte.Me hasn't tried this on every macOS version, so keep the undo handy.

mouseaccelerationpointergamingtracking speed

Give any menu command its own keyboard shortcut — via Apple Support

Hidden settinglow risk

If an app has a menu command you use all the time but no shortcut for it, you can add one yourself. It works for any app, or for all apps at once (for example, a shortcut for 'Export as PDF…').

Turn off autocorrect, auto-capitals and smart quotes — via Apple Support

Hidden settinglow risk

macOS quietly 'fixes' your typing: it corrects words, capitalises sentences, turns a double space into a full stop, and swaps straight quotes for curly ones. That's nice in letters but a pain for code, passwords in notes, or technical terms. Each one can be switched off separately.

Make F1, F2… act as real function keys — via Apple Support

Hidden settinglow risk

The top row of a Mac keyboard controls brightness, volume and media by default, so apps that use F-keys (spreadsheets, IDEs, games) need Fn held down. You can flip it so F1–F12 are standard keys and Fn gives you the media controls.

Turn off mouse acceleration — via Yann Bertrand, macos-defaults.com

The easy way

Command

Undo

Sources

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