![Tip of the Week: Control Your Mouse with Your Keyboard (Really)](https://trustapex.directivesites.com/images/easyblog_shared/September_2025/09-24-25/KeyShort_335064833_400.jpg) #  Tip of the Week: Control Your Mouse with Your Keyboard (Really)

  BLOGAUTHOR   Tip of the Week

## How to Turn Mouse Keys On or Off

To turn on mouse keys, you can use the following keyboard shortcut (which should work for all versions of Windows operating systems):

**Press and hold** the **Left Alt, Left Shift,** and **Num Lock** keys simultaneously. The Left Alt and Left Shift keys are the Alt and Shift keys found on the left side of your keyboard.

You’ll see a dialog box open asking you to turn on/off mouse keys. From here, just click **Yes**. If your mouse isn’t working, you can navigate to the button by using the **Spacebar** or **Enter** keys.

The process above can also turn off mouse keys.

To access mouse keys through the Accessibility settings of Windows 11, you can press the **Windows key**, type **accessibility mouse settings** into the field, and press **Enter**. From here, use the **Tab** key to navigate to the toggle, then hit the **Spacebar** to activate it. You can use the **Alt + F4** shortcut to close the settings window.

## How to Use Mouse Keys to Move Your Cursor

When mouse keys are turned on, you use the Num Lock key to enable them. You can tell if Num Lock is on by looking at the light on your keyboard. When you hit the key, you should hear a high-pitched beep sound, which is your sign that the keypad is controlling your mouse cursor.

You’ll control the cursor by using the 8, 6, 4, and 2 keys. These correspond to the directional arrows of up, right, left, and down. Each key moves the mouse cursor one pixel in the given direction.

To turn off the mouse keys, hit the **Num Lock** key again.

Pretty neat, right? Now you have a backup plan just in case your mouse stops working.

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