Although it does have a fair number of differences, ChromeOS shares many things with Windows, including the point devices that are essential for navigation through UI. All Chromebooks, like Windows laptops, come with a touchpad and support USB/wireless mice. Strangely enough, the Chromebook mouse pointer disappeared for some users (Google forum thread) and they can’t seem to find it anywhere.
Now, if you have a touch screen and actively use touch input, it’s not strange that the mouse disappeared on your Chromebook. On the other hand, once you switch back to the laptop mode, it should reappear. If your touchpad or mouse is not working on your Chromebook, check the steps we provided below.
Table of contents:
- Restart the Chromebook
- Check the flags
- Reset the hardware
- Perform Powerwash (factory reset) on your Chromebook
Chromebook cursor gone? Here’s how to get your mouse back on Chromebook
If the mouse cursor disappeared or the touchpad/mouse is not working on your Chromebook, you can usually fix this by:
- Plug out and plug back in the USB mouse.
- Restart your Chromebook.
- Reset all flags.
- Reset the Hardware
- Perform Powerwash or use a Recovery USB.
1. Restart the Chromebook
Before doing anything, press the combination of Search + Shift + P and check if that enables the touchpad again. If you have function keys at the top row, check if one of them disables the touchpad. Also, if you use a mouse, make sure to plug it out and then plug it in again.
If that did nothing, you should restart your Chromebook. In case you can’t access the Power menu, you can press and hold the Power button until the Chromebook turns off. Use the same button to turn it on again and check for improvements.
If you still can’t see the cursor, power off the device again and try to sign in as a Guest or with an alternative account. Some users report that this made the cursor appear. Later, you can get back to your account.
2. Check the flags
Some experimental flags will enrich the user experience and fix some shortcomings of ChromeOS. However, flags can also disable or limit certain features, so it’s important to act cautiously when using them. So, if a problem arises, you should probably reset all flags and give it another try. Hopefully, the mouse cursor/pointer will appear again. After that, you can get back to flags and re-enable the ones that were useful like Trash Bin or Dark Mode.
If you are not sure how to reset all flags on Chromebooks, follow these steps:
- Open Chrome and type chrome://flags in the Address bar.
- Press Enter.
- Now, click Reset all on the right side.
- Confirm if asked and restart your Chromebook.
3. Reset the hardware
There’s also the combination of buttons that starts the hardware reset sequence. To reset hardware on your Chromebook, you should turn off your Chromebook and then press and hold both the Power button and the Refresh button. Once the splash screen appears, you can release the Refresh button but keep holding the Power button.
Once your Chromebook boots into ChromeOS, you should be able to sign in and see again the Chromebook mouse that disappeared.
4. Perform Powerwash (factory reset) on your Chromebook
Finally, you are left with only 3 possible options. The first one is Powerwash which is the factory reset. The second one is USB Recovery which will reinstall the system. And, finally, you can take your device for repair because, after all these steps, there’s a good chance that your touchpad is broken.
Here’s how to Powerwash your Chromebook in a few simple steps:
- Back up all data from the local drive.
- Open Settings.
- Select Advanced.
- Choose Reset settings.
- Click Reset.
Or you can use a USB drive to create a Recovery USB. If you have any questions or suggestions, make sure to share them with us in the comments section. Thank you for reading and we hope the provided solutions helped you solve the problem.
Editor’s note: This article was initially published in July 2022. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.
