How to Fix Disappearing Cursor in Mojave

Sometimes, the Mac cursor randomly disappears or becomes invisible. The reason for this is not clear, but this Mac behavior often happens when the computer has less memory to spare like when a lot of tabs are open on a browser or when the user is running memory intensive applications like Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.

What To Do If the Cursor in Mojave Disappears

There are several ways of solving the issue of disappearing cursor in Mojave. We start with the simplest.

1. Hit the Command +Tab keys on your Mac to switch to Finder, then switch back to the active app.
2. Press Command + Option+ Escape to summon the Force Quit Menu. The cursor will appear just by the summoning of this menu, or you can go ahead and quit the app that is making the cursor disappear.
3. Alternatively, you can quit all active apps and relaunch them again.
4. Adjust the size of the cursor by going to the System Preferences> Accessibility> Display to make it reappear.
5. Reboot your computer.

The above set of tricks works to make the cursor reappear on the Mac, but as implied, they are nowhere near being a permanent solution to the problem. For a more lasting solution, here are some of the things that you should consider doing:

Clean Your PC

You want to boost the performance of your computer by cleaning it with the help of a Mac repair tool. Cleaning here means deleting old files, clearing web caches, repairing missing registry entries, updating software and drivers, removing viruses, and boosting overall performance.

Running Mac repair will also help you identify the software that is taking up too much memory on startup. This is especially helpful if you don’t have a lot of memory to spare on your computer. Once you have identified those memory-consuming apps, you can quit them altogether.

Use the Activity Monitor

The Activity Monitor is the Windows equivalent of the Task Manager on a Mac. It can be used to quit applications that are taking too much memory. As noted earlier, the disappearing cursor on Mojave problem is memory- related and can thus be resolved by quitting memory intensive applications.

This is how to use the Activity Monitor to quit applications on your Mac:

1. Go the Applications folder > Utilities and then double-click Activity Monitor to launch the app.
2. You will see an app with five tabs and a list of entries that change frequently.

To be able to make the most of the Activity Monitor, you have to understand the data in each of the five tabs. The following is a simple analysis of what each of the five tabs presents:

• CPU– The CPU pane shows how the running processes are affecting the CPU activity. A high percent of CPU usage indicates that the process takes a lot of computing power.
• Memory – The tab shows information on how the different processes are using memory. A top ranked activity on this pane indicates that it is using a lot of memory.
• Energy – The Energy tab shows how much energy is being consumed by the apps that are running.
• Disk – The Disk tab shows the amount of data that is being read and written to your disk.
• Network – The Network tab shows how much data is being sent and received over your network.

The tab that you should be on the lookout for is the Memory tab. Processes that are using too much memory are listed at the top, and if they are of no use to you, then you can quit the particular app that is running them. It is common for PC users to have their browsers open, even though they might not be using the browser at the moment. Situations like this unnecessarily use a lot of memory.

To quit any process that is using too much memory, click on it and choose Quit. This will stop the app from running and free the memory that is allocated to it.

Force Quitting an App

There is another way to force an app to quit on your Mac. Here is how to do it:

1. Press the Option, Command, and Esc keys together. Alternatively, you can choose Force Quit from the Apple menu in the left corner of the screen.
2. Select the app you want to quit in the Force Quit window, then click Force Quit.

Add RAM to Your Mac

Sometimes, it could be the case that your RAM is not up to the task of handling multiple processes and apps running at the same time. This is probably why your cursor is disappearing in Mojave. This happens after engaging with memory intensive apps like Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. If you are using these apps, make sure that you have a minimum of 8GB RAM on your Mac and that the processor of your PC clocks above 2GHz.

But before you go replacing your RAM, conduct a hardware test first to see if there are any problems with the current memory installed on your device.

Conducting a Hardware test on the Mac

1. Disconnect all external hardware (devices) except the keyboard, mouse, display, and Ethernet connection where applicable. This is meant to prevent the Apple Hardware test from displaying an error.
2. Place your Mac on a hard, flat, stable, and well-ventilated surface.
3. Shut down your Mac.
4. Turn your Mac on and immediately press and hold the D key on your keyboard. Keep holding the D key until the Apple hardware test icon appears.
5. Select your language preferences, and then press the Return key.
6. To begin the test, Press T, the Test Button, or press Return. Alternatively, you can select “Perform extended testing” before beginning the test.
7. To review the results of the test, go to the lower-right section of the window.
8. To quit the test, shut down your Mac.

The hardware test will report any hardware issues that are limiting your Macs performance and recommend appropriate action. It may be required of you to replace your RAM, for instance.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that memory problems are very common and the best defense against the disruptions that they cause is to not overwork your computer by having too many applications open at the same time.