Mac Problem – When moving the mouse moves the entire enlarged screen

08
May
posted on May 8th, 2008 by Trisha Cupra
under Mac Stuff | 45 Comments »

Apple keyboard and mouseI’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.

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Comments

45
  1. August 5th | Yang Suh says:

    Thxs… saved my butt. it was my son…. not Rocco probably same IQ

  2. August 6th | Trisha Cupra says:

    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.

  3. October 26th | Sakred1 says:

    My baby girl….did this to me too…Thanks saved me a headache!

  4. October 26th | Trisha Cupra says:

    @Sakred1: Glad it helped. Maybe I should write a book called, “Help! My Baby Broke My Computer!” :)

  5. December 4th | AtechDad says:

    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!)

  6. December 17th | Trisha Cupra says:

    I remember checking my System Preferences, too. It’s a real mystery until you realize what actually happened!

  7. December 21st | Kenna's mom says:

    Thanks so much, this was driving me crazy. you are a lifesaver!!!
    ps. my kid did the same thing!!

  8. January 22nd | baris says:

    thank you for the tip

  9. January 22nd | Trisha Cupra says:

    Glad it helped.

  10. February 26th | milla says:

    thanks so much!

  11. September 16th | Mary Kay says:

    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.

  12. October 9th | Susie says:

    Yes, thanks! I was a bit panicked. My cat okra did this shifty trick too while I was using the mouse.

  13. October 11th | Vivienne Scholl says:

    Thank you so much for posting this!!!

  14. October 13th | Brian says:

    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

  15. March 13th | MIchelle says:

    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! :)

  16. August 27th | Maha says:

    i have the same problem, what was the solution for it??

  17. September 20th | Dorothea says:

    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?

  18. September 21st | Dorothea says:

    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.

  19. April 2nd | MC says:

    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

  20. May 24th | amanda says:

    thanks for the tip fixed the prob within 1 min :)

  21. November 7th | Another Dad says:

    From one parent to another. Thank you!!! Baby boy and keyboard + not up to speed with Mac keyboard = needed your answer.
    Thanks

  22. November 24th | Erika says:

    Thank you so much!!! My kitten did this to me! So easy to fix, you’re amazing!

  23. December 5th | Kay says:

    Thank you SO much! Our stories are Identical except our sons have different names LOL! Thank you again your awesome for posting this!! :)  

  24. January 13th | Katie says:

    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!

  25. January 13th | Trisha Cupra says:

    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.

  26. January 16th | Katie says:

    Thankyou Trisha! We have success! : ) x

  27. February 4th | Kerri Smith says:

    You are a life saver…my daughters that is…playing on the keyboard with her friend…ugh. Just wanted to say thanks!

  28. February 14th | Trisha Cupra says:

    Glad this is still helping people – parents especially, and pet owners. :)

  29. February 20th | Johanna says:

    This really saved me, thank you! I’m new to mac and my toddler did the same thing. It took me a couple days of googling to find your site and figure out the answer. I can’t thank you enough!

  30. February 20th | Trisha Cupra says:

    Zooming seems to be part of all toddlers’ job description. It’s an occupational hazard. :)

  31. March 29th | Zeecil says:

    Thank you – that is so nice of you to post this!! I actually managed to do this myself and I am no toddler. Bless you, bless you

  32. June 16th | Jackie says:

    THANKYOU! Yes, it was MY son too, who did this – and he’s 13 so should know better!!

  33. June 18th | Hayley says:

    Thank you!!!! Toddler did the same just now.. Rang the Mac helpline.. Couldnt help me.. Found your advice.. Yay! It was making my eyes hurt… You saved the day.ThankYou!

  34. June 20th | The Shack says:

    thanks a million………..
    wife was doing an online uni exam and must have leant on control key whilst scrolling on track pad, she just freaked out as exam was timed

    easy fix and happy wife …………..phew

  35. June 26th | Amy says:

    Thank you! lol my son did the same thing and it was starting to drive me crazy as I did not know what had happened. Yes I think you should write a book “help my baby broke my computer” I would need to buy it for sure!

    I am just so thankful that I came across your post so quickly, thanks again!

  36. June 30th | Anna says:

    Aaah! Thanks so much, my cat just did this to me. Such an easy thing to fix hahah thanks again!!

  37. September 25th | Mao says:

    Thanks dude! Experience that I will never forget…. god bless ya!

  38. November 1st | Ann Gibson says:

    It’s actually the “command” key on a MacBook. It just happened to me, and Control didn’t work, but your post made me get creative and try other keys while scrolling. ;)

    Thanks!

  39. November 4th | Kan says:

    Thank you SO much. My daughter did the same thing and your post saved me.

  40. November 24th | Alison says:

    Thanks! My son just did exactly the same thing, and your article was the first one that popped up after doing a quick search for the fix!

  41. December 11th | GMom says:

    THANK YOU! My 8 month old just did this and I didn’t know what the heck to do. I love you! You’re a life-saver!

  42. January 23rd | stephanie says:

    thanks this saved me i was freaking out!!!!!

  43. January 26th | aleriah says:

    The above suggestions do not work I tried all of them. I dont have a mouse, just a pad, but found he Apple site and their instructions worked. Here they are with link.

    “Open the Universal Access pane of System Preferences and turn off the Zoom option in the Seeing tab.”

    link: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1145797?start=0&tstart=0

  44. February 6th | Grace says:

    My daughter did the same thing. Thanks to you I fixed it really fast. Bless you.

  45. February 16th | Sarah says:

    In my case it was 7-month-old Elizabeth! Thank you!!

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