A MacBook’s trackpad is essentially an internal mouse with additional features. You can click, tap, swipe, slide, open Notification Center, and perform other actions with the Mac trackpad gestures. You might, however, have trouble with your MacBook’s trackpad, like when it doesn’t click or respond when you touch it. In this article, we’ll go over the possible causes of the trackpad not working and offer solutions for each one.
What to do when the trackpad gesture on a MacBook stops working
There are typically 2 causes for your MacBook trackpad gesture to stop working:
- the software was corrupted
- the hardware was corrupted
While software troubleshooting will cost you nothing, the hardware repair costs may vary.
Fix 1
Plugging in an external mouse will make it simpler to troubleshoot, so that is the first thing we suggest. You can try the gesture using a compatible Apple mouse. If the issue persists, then you can try out the next fix.
- Click the Apple logo at the top left of your Mac’s display, and then click “System Preferences.” The System Preferences window appears.
- Click “Trackpad.” Three tabs appear at the top of the Trackpad settings window: “Point & Click,” “Scroll & Zoom” and “More Gestures.”
- Click a tab to view a list of the gestures in that category. For example, click “More Gestures” to see gestures such as “Swipe Between Pages” and “Show Desktop.”
- Click the check box next to the name of a gesture to select it. The gesture is now enabled. When you are finished activating gestures, click the red circle at the top of the Trackpad settings window to close it.
- Reconfirm to see if the gestures are now working
Fix 2
This method is for an advanced user. It is easy though. All you have to do is type the following command line in Terminal. You can try iTerm2 terminal.
killall Dock
This should fix the issue.
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