How To Turn off Trackpad in Mac

8 years ago
Mritunjay Jadon
2 minutes

How To Do I Get Rid Of Trackpad In Mac OS X

Basically, trackpad in mac is used for multi-touch gestures. According to my research all major desktop operating system not work well with trackpad because of trackpad work better with OS X because of its touch-based ability.

Currently, Microsoft working on touch technologies for Windows. But Apple focusing on developing its multi-touch technologies in Mac OS X.

Trackpad gestures offer the user to perform some common action more quickly these actions are –

  • Open & Close Notification Center 
  • Lookup Word in Dictionary
  • Open Launchpad
  • ZoomIn and zoom out on the Screen  
  • Scrub backward on QuickTime

For more information regarding Trackpad, Actions visited here.

How To Disable TrackPad In Mac OS X

In my research, I’ve found two methods from which you can disable or turn off the trackpad in Mac. Using a script to turn off trackpad or you can also manually disable trackpad mac.

Using a Command Line To Disable And Enable Trackpad :

Enable :

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTrackpad.kext

Disable :

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTrackpad.kext

You can use the above-given command line to enable and disable the trackpad in Mac OS X.  Just open the navigate to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal.  In Terminal run following command lines.

Manually turn off Trackpad In Mac

You can also manually turn off the trackpad if you like to just follow the given below steps.

Step 1 : 

Open System Preference window in Mac.

Step 2 : 

In System Preference on-screen window. Click on ”Accessibility”.

Step 3 :

Now from the left side menu list. Click on “Mouse & Trackpad”.

Step 4 : 

In this last step, Check to the box next to Ignore built-in trackpad when a mouse or wireless trackpad is the present option.