It often happens to me that I open my MacBook Pro to use it while traveling, only to find out that I can't use it because the effin' Magic is locked away in some luggage, and the trackpad is not clicking. Of course I cannot turn the Bluetooth off, since the trackpad doesn't click. But the weirdest thing is that I always turn the Magic Mouse off before putting it away (I move the slide on the bottom so that the green color is not showing), yet it still prevents me from using the trackpad!
Why does that happen? What's with this brilliant design choice that one couldn't use the trackpad if one also has a Magic Mouse?
Best Answer
This is a feature, not a bug. The idea is that you might want to disable the trackpad if you are using a mouse because, for example, you accidentally hit the trackpad with the palm of your hand.
I thought it was turned off by default, but in any case, here’s how to turn it on or off:
System Preferences » Accessibility » Mouse & Trackpad
[ ] Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present
For more details: OSX Daily: Ignoring Built-in Trackpad Input When Using External Mouse with MacBook
Turning Bluetooth On / Off Without the Mouse
1) If you have
brewinstalled, you can easily install blueutil viabrew install blueutil. Then you can disable Bluetooth by going to Terminal and typing:blueutil --power 02) “Full Keyboard Access” can also help:
Once that is enabled, open Bluetooth preferences in System Preferences and press
Tabto highlight the “Turn Bluetooth Off” button, as shown here:Then press the
Spacebarto turn Bluetooth Off.3) If you use Alfred or LaunchBar, I suspect they probably have tools to allow you to toggle bluetooth as well.