Apple - How can I connect a bluetooth mouse without using the cursor (chicken and egg problem)

You can open the Mouse System Preferences by using Spotlight search.

  1. Press ⌘-Space to open Spotlight. Type "mouse" to find the Mouse System Preferences and press Enter.
  2. When the Mouse Preferences are opened, make sure the mouse is on and wait for it to be discovered. The "Connect" button should be blue, so you can press Enter to connect to it, and you're done.

You should see a prompt when you turn on your computer. If the mouse can't be found,

  • Check if the mouse is on.
  • Check all other computers to see if one of them is paired with the mouse. If that is the case, unpair it.

If none of those work, try a USB mouse.


If the batteries run out in my wireless mouse it never reconnects automatically and I have resorted to reconnecting a wired mouse to click on the bluetooth icon in the menu bar. Then I found that you can activate the bluetooth icon by pressing Control-F8 (the "Move focus to status menus" in the keyboard shortcuts) and using the cursor keys and the enter key to get to the connect menu item for the mouse.