I have to admit it: I rely heavily on a mouse when I’m working on my computer.
Even now, when I write this article, the only tool I use is the Mac keyboard — but I’m still used to moving my finger to touch my Apple mouse now and then. It may be a bad habit; I just find it hard to change. I’ve tried but always ended up feeling like something was missing.
I use a Magic Mouse 2, and never have a problem with it. But that was not the case when I first received it over a year ago. I opened it excitedly, turned it on and paired it to my Mac, only to find that it wouldn’t scroll up and down!
The reason? Long story short: the device wasn’t compatible with the macOS version that my MacBook Pro was running. The issue was resolved after I spent a few hours updating the Mac to a newer macOS.
This is just one of the problems I encountered with my magic mouse 2. I’ve faced quite a few other issues, especially when I used Magic Mouse on my PC (HP Pavilion, Windows 10).
In this guide, I share those issues and solutions with Magic Mouse. I hope you find them helpful.
Magic Mouse Issues on macOS
Issue 1: How to Connect Magic Mouse to Mac for the Very First Time
Watch this 1-minute youtube video made by Dan.
Issue 2: Magic Mouse Won’t Connect or Pair
First of all, make sure your wireless mouse is switched. Also, make sure your Mac Bluetooth is turned on. Then move your mouse or tap to click it. This often wakes up the device. If that doesn’t work, restart your Mac.
If that still doesn’t help, your mouse battery could be low. Charge it for several minutes (or replace the AA batteries with new ones if you are using a traditional Magic Mouse 1) and retry.
Note: If you are like me, and tend to slide the mouse switch to “off” after shutting down my Mac for the sake of saving battery, be sure to slide the switch to “on” first before you start your Mac machine. Quite a few times, when I turned on the switch at an inappropriate time, I couldn’t locate or use the mouse at all and had to restart my Mac.
Issue 3: Magic Mouse One Finger Scroll Doesn’t Work
This issue annoyed me for a while. My Magic Mouse 2 was successfully connected to my Mac, and I could move the mouse cursor with no problem, but the scrolling function didn’t work at all. I couldn’t scroll up, down, left or right with one finger.
Well, the culprit turned out to be OS X Yosemite, which contains the worst bugs related to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Apple Mail. To check what macOS your Mac is running, click the Apple logo on the top left corner and select About This Mac.
The solution? Upgrade to a newer macOS version. I tried and the issue was gone.
Issue 4: Magic Mouse Keeps Disconnecting or Freezing on Mac
This happened to me as well, and it turned out to be that my mouse battery was low. After recharging, the issue never occurred again. However, after viewing this Apple discussion, some fellow Apple users also contributed other fixes. I’ve summarized them here, the order is based on ease of implementation:
- Charge your mouse battery.
- Disconnect other peripherals, then move your mouse closer to your Mac for a stronger signal.
- Disconnect your mouse and repair it. If possible, rename the device.
- Reset NVRAM. See this Apple support post for how.
Issue 5: How to Set up Mouse Preferences
If you want to adjust the mouse’s tracking speed, enable right-click, add more gestures, etc, Mouse Preferences is the place to go. Here, you can customize your preferences with Apple’s intuitive demos shown on the right.
Click on the Bluetooth icon on the top menu bar, move to your mouse name, and click “Open Mouse Preferences.”
A new window like this will pop up. Now select whatever you want to change and it will take effect immediately.
Magic Mouse Issues on Windows
Disclaimer: The following issues are purely based on my observation and experience using Magic Mouse on my HP Pavilion laptop (Windows 10). I am yet to test it with Windows 7 or 8.1, or while using Windows on a Mac via BootCamp or virtual machine software. As such, some of the solutions may not necessarily work with your PC.
Issue 6: How to Pair Magic Mouse to Windows 10
Step 1: Locate the Bluetooth icon on the Taskbar on the bottom right corner. If it does not show up there, see this discussion to learn how to enable it. Right-click on it and select “Add a Bluetooth Device”.
Step 2: Search for your Magic Mouse and click to pair it. Make sure you’ve turned on Bluetooth, and slide your mouse switch to “on.” Since I’ve already paired the mouse, it now shows “Remove device”.
Step 3: Follow the rest of the instructions your PC walks you through, then wait for a few seconds. You should be able to use your mouse now.
Issue 7: Magic Mouse Not Scrolling on Windows 10
You’ll need to install some drivers to make it work.
If you installed Windows 10 via BootCamp on your Mac, Apple offers Boot Camp Support Software (Windows drivers) available here. Click the blue button to download the drivers (882 MB in size). Then follow the instructions in this video to install them properly:
If you are like me and using Windows 10 on a PC, you can download these two drivers (AppleBluetoothInstaller64 & AppleWirelessMouse64) from this forum (note: the language is Chinese). After installing them on my Windows 10 based HP, the Magic Mouse scrolling feature works amazingly well. Plus, they are free. Shout out to the Chinese geeks for developing them.
I also tried another tool called Magic Utilities. It worked nicely as well, but it’s a commercial program that offers a 28-day free trial. After the trial is over, you’ll have to pay $14.9/year on subscription. So, in case the free drivers above don’t work, Magic Utilities is a good option.
Issue 8: How to Set Up Magic Mouse on Windows 10
If you feel the scrolling is not smooth, right-click does not work, the pointer speed is too fast or slow, or want to switch right-handed to left-handed or vice versa, etc., you can change those in Mouse Properties.
In the same Device Settings windows (see Issue 1), under Related settings, click “Additional mouse options”. A new window will pop up. Now navigate to the different tabs (Buttons, Pointers, Wheel, etc.) to make the changes you want. Don’t forget to click “OK” to save the settings.
Final Words
These are all the issues and solutions I wanted to share with you regarding using Magic Mouse 2 on a Mac or PC. If you find this guide useful, please kindly share it out. If you are experiencing another issue that I haven’t covered here, please let me know by leaving a comment below. Meanwhile, check out related articles below:
- 5 Quality Alternatives to Apple’s Magic Mouse 2
- Magic Mouse vs. Magic Trackpad: Which One Should I Use?
- The Best Mouse for Mac
P.S. there are a lot of rumors out there about Magic Mouse 3, see here, here and here. Hopefully, version 3 will address some or all the problems that version 2 has.
Hi,
I’m having trouble connecting my magic mouse 2 to my Mac (MacBook Pro 2016) when running Windows 10.
I’ve tried connecting it from the Bluetooth settings but when I click the “Pair” button it says “Try again and make sure your mouse is still discoverable”.
What should I do? Do you have any other ideas about what I should try?
Thanks!
Hi Demetra,
Thanks for taking the time to leave the comment. Are you using Windows 10 on your Mac via Boot Camp? If so, the only suggestion from my end is refer you to this Apple article https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204990 and make sure device drivers are properly installed. You may want to charge your Magic Mouse 2 for a few minutes until the battery reaches a relative high percentage (say at least 50% remaining). Also, try switching off the mouse and turning off bluetooth on Windows 10, then switch on both and try reconnecting. I hope it would work out.
– JP
Thanks!
The thing is sometimes it works, sometimes not…It even says the mouse is connected, but it doesn’t work.
It’s really weird, but thanks for the help!
Hello JP,
I downloaded both programs and while the first said there was nothing to update the wireless mouse 64 did the trick. I was so upset when I couldn’t scroll down. I’m spoiled again thanks to your fix.
You are amazing. From one tech guy to another thank you.
Hello,
I have the latest version of Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.4 with latest security update 05/21/18. My magic mouse 2 gestures are not working after recharge and update. Suggestions?
Thank you.
Hi I’m having an issue with my magic mouse and haven’t been able to find a solution, but you seem well versed compared to anything else I’ve seen published. In Windows 10 on my iMac the mouse works and it even scrolls fine, but right click doesn’t work, it works fine in High Sierra when I have the secondary click enabled.
Any ideas? I would try it on another windows 10 but I can’t find my Bluetooth dongle.
My issue is that when i go through the set up process on my HP Elite Notebook, I make sure Bluetooth is on and my laptop is discover-able, i make sure the switch underneath my magic 2 mouse is set to on (green) and then go through the process via the Bluetooth menu. I get to the point were it’s searching for devices but the mouse doesn’t come up. I have tried switching Bluetooth on both devices off and on again at various stages of the process but it makes no difference.
My mouse is frozen/ disconnected and won’t connect! I don’t have any other mouses to use on my iMac! I’ve had it on charge and it still won’t work what’s that’s problem
Hi JP,
I’m trying to use a Magic Mouse 2 with my Lenovo 710s laptop, but i’ve tried all your suggestions and many others i’ve found and nothing has worked. Only the scrolling doesn’t work. What do you think i should do?
Great, it works very well on W10. 🙂 Thank you.
Thanks a million for your help. I downloaded the mouse driver from the Chinese website for my Dell vostro 1510 operating system windows 10 pro and it works properly.
Great. Glad it still works, thanks for letting me know.
I’ve followed this a few times, just in case I was doing something wrong, and it just doesn’t seem to work! Do you have any idea why that could be?
Hi, I have a problem using Magic Mouse 2 on my new hp windows 10 laptop.
It is connected but the only problem is that the scroll up and down and sideways are not working.
Thanks as I await your quick response.
Can Magic Mouse pair with 2 MacBooks?
I don’t think so.
My problem is as follows: Not even the Apple hotline seemed to be capable of resolving my Magic Mouse 2 problem. I was asked to make a screenshot of the problem which is impossible as it is gone as soon as it comes. This is my 2nd Mac and I had the problem before. An Apple retailer removed this malfunction with a few clicks.(I should have asked him what he did ..my mistake, but I did ask him what function this had, and he shook his head and said he had no idea) Even with all my preferences switched off, whilst I’m writing a mail or whatever I often suddenly find myself in the previous link. A type of semi-circle surrounding an arrow appears on the left-hand side center of the monitor and all I’ve written is gone. (A form of an unwanted Time Machine). This occurs without “sweeping” as, like I said, I’ve switched off my preferences. I also notice that a similar “logo” appears unwantedly on the opposite side of the monitor. I have at the moment System 10.14.5 with Mojave, and High Sierra with the previous problem. No forum seems to have this problem. I have to post this soon before it gets deleted. Thanks for any help as it’s making me go crazy.
After hours of searching I found a fix thats working for me!
Right-click on Start, and select Device Manager.
In Device Manager, click the arrow next to Bluetooth, and select the Bluetooth radio.
Right-click the Bluetooth radio and select Properties.
Select the Power Management tab, and see if there is a check next to Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.
Thanks for sharing the tip, Marvin!
Hi, I’ve only got the scrolling to work without “magic mouse utilities”. Can anyone get the middle mouse click to work without the program? Thanks
My apple magic mouse 2 wont charge
Hi JP,
I’m tired of replacing batteries on my original magic mouse, so i have swapped it out for magic mouse 2 with usb charge cable that I used on my work computer.
Im on a iMac OS X 10.9.5 and the magic mouse 2 doesnt have any of the gesture setting appear in mouse setting, yet the battery one does. There are no scrolling capabilities but worked fine on my work iMac.
No system updgrades available for my home computer.
Any suggestions welcome!
Cheers
Unfortunately, the issue I have with my Apple Magic Mouse is not listed, above.
My mouse is not move properly on the screen, occasionally. Sometimes, and i would say quite often it only moves diagonally and NOT in any direction.
Is anybody there who know how to fix it?
Thanks,
Rino