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For the last few hours my trackpad has been behaving terribly, jumping all over the place and sticking. I believe I remember there being an option to disable the trackpad when a mouse is plugged in in previous versions of OS X, but can't seem to find that option anymore.

Is such an option still available in Lion?

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2 Answers

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Thankfully, you can still disable the trackpad in OS X Lion.

Open System Preferences, click on Universal Access, select Mouse & Trackpad and click on Trackpad Options... at the bottom. Tick the checkbox "Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present".

Disable trackpad in OS X Lion

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No, but there is an option labeled "Ignore accidental trackpad input" in System Preferences: Trackpad. Does that help?

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Thanks, but unfortunately that didn't help. It's been getting worse, now it jerks the mouse to the left whenever I type in the left side of the keyboard. Nothing short of entirely disabling it is likely to help. – Jeremy Banks Aug 11 '11 at 22:16
Try resetting the PRAM. What model Macintosh are you on, and how old is it? – Wheat Williams Aug 12 '11 at 4:16
That worked! Thank you! It's a 15" MacBook Pro, exactly one year old. – Jeremy Banks Aug 12 '11 at 4:24
Actually, the problem is coming back again as I leave the computer. Bah, glad I've got a warranty. – Jeremy Banks Aug 12 '11 at 4:39
Well if you've got a warranty, take it right back to the Apple Store. It's likely a hardware problem. – Wheat Williams Aug 12 '11 at 5:01

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