Andrew Heinzman
One of our favorite macOS features is “shake mouse pointer to locate.” It balloons your cursor to a comically large size when you shake your mouse, helping you find the cursor when it’s tucked in the corner of your screen or hidden in one of your many desktop monitors. Microsoft finally took a crack at copying this feature, and the results are pretty disappointing.
The latest version of Microsoft PowerToys, a free tool that adds advanced features to Windows 10 and Windows 11, now has a “Find My Mouse” tool that highlights your lost cursor. Just double-tap the left CTRL key on your keyboard to dim your screen and put a spotlight on your cursor icon. Then, click any key to dismiss “Find My Mouse.”
Can't find your mouse on screen? PowerToys can help with that! Find My Mouse lets you double press the left ctrl key to spotlight your mouse. Then, just click or press any key to dismiss it. https://t.co/PjjFSIJeCp
#12DaysOfWIP pic.twitter.com/zZvJKndxTE— Windows Insider Program (@windowsinsider) December 16, 2021
While it’s nice to see Microsoft build this feature for Windows, we have a few problems with its implementation. The biggest issue is that “Find My Mouse” shouldn’t be a PowerToys exclusive. Also, triggering “Find My Mouse” with the CTRL button isn’t very intuitive—when people lose track of their cursor, they move their mouse around a lot. They don’t press a bunch of random keys.
To Microsoft’s credit, “Find My Mouse” is pretty customizable. You can disable the feature while gaming, change its spotlight color, and even change its animation speed. But it would’ve made more sense for Microsoft to copy Apple’s homework; there’s no need to reinvent the wheel for something that’s already been perfected.
I’m sure that some people are saying “this feature isn’t new,” which is only halfway true. Windows has a very old “Find My Mouse” tool in its personalization settings, but this tool just draws an ugly circle around the cursor instead of properly highlighting it.
Source: Microsoft
