Mac Problem – When moving the mouse moves the entire enlarged screen
May
I’ve owned my iMac for just a few months now. I love it, but the most frustrating hiccups I’ve had is when I’ve had my toddler, Rocco, on my lap and he’s gone crazy on the keyboard. He’s already renamed my hard drive, but the worst thing that happened was when the whole screen became larger and would move around with the mouse. It really freaked me out. It makes the computer only just usable. Just usable enough to try to find the fix.
The first time this happened was about a month ago, and I managed to google the answer. I promptly forget what the trick was, and today it happened again.
Well, I very much freaked out this time when I just couldn’t find the same web page with Google as I had before.
But I did find the fix. It turns out that Rocco had pressed the Control key while I was scrolling up a web page with the middle scroll button of my mighty mouse. That made the screen zoom in wildly.
All I needed to do was hold down the control key and scroll downwards with the scroll button.
I’m posting this partly as a reminder note to myself for next time Rocco does this trick, and for anyone else who has this happen to them.
Thxs… saved my butt. it was my son…. not Rocco probably same IQ
Glad you found the solution here, Yang. Every day I get visits to this page from people with this problem searching for a fix on Google.
My baby girl….did this to me too…Thanks saved me a headache!
@Sakred1: Glad it helped. Maybe I should write a book called, “Help! My Baby Broke My Computer!”
Wow. What a great, cool, fast fix! lol
Too bad I couldn’t find the answer when I checked my system preferences, etc.
I’ll blame my wife! (But it could have been MY son too!)
I remember checking my System Preferences, too. It’s a real mystery until you realize what actually happened!
Thanks so much, this was driving me crazy. you are a lifesaver!!!
ps. my kid did the same thing!!
thank you for the tip
Glad it helped.
thanks so much!
You are my hero right now. My six year old son enlarged our screen to where I couldn’t see anything. I was out of the room at the time, so I wasn’t aware of what he did exactly. Thanks to you, it is back to normal and I am relieved. Thank you for posting the information above.
Yes, thanks! I was a bit panicked. My cat okra did this shifty trick too while I was using the mouse.
Thank you so much for posting this!!!
same happened just now with my daughter Ciara – thanks for the solution, I told my wife I could find a solution in 2 minutes… it took a half an hour..
her solution also works… restart the computer
Thank-you so much!! Wow- it was the weirdest thing and so easy to do – it was my 10 year old who suddenly while playing a game on line made the crazy mouse as he called it come alive! Thanks for helping us put the crazy mouse to rest!
i have the same problem, what was the solution for it??
Help! I’m having that problem right now! And I tried scrolling while holding down control and it didn’t work. (I don’t have a mighty mouse, just one with a scroll ball on top) I also tried restarting and that didn’t return my screen to normal either! Can this (bad) “feature” be disabled somehow?
So, I got it, the trick I think, was scrolling on the desktop, not in my open program for instance … thanks so much for the blog here. It would be good if I could find out how to delete that whole option if possible.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Same thing happened to me (only I wish I could blame one of my kids but I dont have kids) and your article helped my sanity for sure! I figured it was a simple fix but couldn’t find an answer anywhere and was freaking out not realizing how to undo what I had done. Thanks again for your post!
MC
thanks for the tip fixed the prob within 1 min
From one parent to another. Thank you!!! Baby boy and keyboard + not up to speed with Mac keyboard = needed your answer.
Thanks
Thank you so much!!! My kitten did this to me! So easy to fix, you’re amazing!
Thank you SO much! Our stories are Identical except our sons have different names LOL! Thank you again your awesome for posting this!!
Hi I’ve got the same problem, but I adjusted the zoom in system preferences and it has made no difference, I don’t know what else I can do! Can anyone help? Thanks!
Hi Katie. Did you try holding down the Control key and scrolling? What type of mouse are you using?
Also, try rebooting the Mac – does that restore things back to normal for you? Even just logging out of your user account and logging back in may help.
Thankyou Trisha! We have success! : ) x