Which Mac accessibility settings help with a hand tremor?
macOS has a whole set of accessibility settings for people who find the mouse or keyboard hard to use: for a tremor from Parkinson's, essential tremor or anything else. They are spread over several pages of System Settings, and most are off at first.
The short answer: start in System Settings › Accessibility, under Motor. Pointer Control holds the double-click speed, Spring-loading, Mouse Keys and alternate pointer actions; Keyboard holds Slow Keys and Sticky Keys; Voice Control lets you click and type by speaking. Under Vision, Display makes the pointer bigger. None of them removes shaking from the pointer itself.
Where are the motor accessibility settings on a Mac?
Open System Settings › Accessibility. The Motor section has Voice Control, Keyboard, Pointer Control and Switch Control. The pointer's size and colour are under Vision, in Display.
Which pointer settings help with a tremor?
- Pointer size. Accessibility › Display › Pointer size: a bigger pointer is easier to follow.
- Shake mouse pointer to locate. In the same place. It makes the pointer big for a moment when you shake the mouse; with a tremor it can set itself off, so turn it off if the pointer keeps growing.
- Double-click speed. Accessibility › Pointer Control › Double-click speed: slower if double-clicks fail, faster if single clicks become double-clicks.
- Spring-loading. In Pointer Control: turn it off so a drag that pauses over a folder doesn't open it.
- Mouse Keys. In Pointer Control: moves the pointer with the keyboard. On a keyboard without a number pad, 7, 8, 9, U, O, J, K and L move it and I clicks. Its options include Press the Option key five times to toggle Mouse Keys.
- Alternate pointer actions and Head pointer. In Pointer Control: click with a key, a switch or a facial expression, or move the pointer with your head through the camera.
Which keyboard settings help with a tremor?
Accessibility › Keyboard › Slow Keys makes a key count only after it has been held for the acceptance delay, so a brushed key types nothing. Sticky Keys, in the same place, lets you press a shortcut such as ⌘ C one key at a time. In System Settings › Keyboard, a slower Key repeat rate (or Off) and a longer Delay until repeat stop a held key from typing a row of letters. Typing with a tremor goes through these step by step.
Can I use a Mac by voice instead?
Yes. Accessibility › Voice Control lets you open apps, click buttons by name and dictate text. Saying "show numbers" puts a number on every item you can click, and saying the number clicks it, so the pointer doesn't need to be steady at all. For typing alone, Dictation is in System Settings › Keyboard.
What do the Mac's accessibility settings not do?
They give other ways to point and click, and make the pointer slower or bigger, but none of them tells a shake apart from a movement you mean. The pointer still copies the tremor, and the hand can still slip while the button is down. That is the gap a tremor filter fills: see how to steady a shaky pointer.