macOS has a neat feature that makes the on-screen pointer larger whenever you shake your mouse vigorously.
Sounds daft, doesn’t it? But this momentary magnification makes it easier to find your pointer’s location on the screen (and since most of us shake our mouse to find the pointer anyway, it’s not an extra effort).
On large screen and multi-monitor setups, or when using a dark wallpaper, it is easy to loose track of where the mouse pointer arrow is.
A quick shake of the mouse (or a firm tickle on your trackpad) makes the cursor temporarily bigger, as if to say: “Oi, I’m over here!” — a time-saver you’ll wonder how you managed without!
But the good news is you don’t need to switch to Mac to benefit.
‘Jiggle’ can do a bunch of stuff Apple’s version can’t, like adjusting the trigger threshold
A ‘pointer locate’ feature is available for Ubuntu (for free) by installing “Jiggle” GNOME extension.
Install and enable Jiggle on Ubuntu then shake your mouse, or scribble on your trackpad, to instantly see where your pointer is.
Even better, the Jiggle extension does things Apple’s implementation doesn’t, like showing cool cursor-spotting effects, painting an on-screen cursor trail, and offering full control over the shake threshold so you don’t trigger the animation accidentally.
As well as being a must-have for those looking to make Ubuntu look like a Mac (and feel like a Mac too) this extension is useful for anyone looking to get on with doing things a second or so faster.
Does this tiny add-on revolutionise the computing experience? Haha, no – but it does buff away a teensy bit of friction.
Jiggle is available to install from the GNOME Extensions website, and as it supports GNOME 40 – 44 (it works great in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS). If you’re using Ubuntu 23.10 there’s a fork called Wiggle that works with GNOME 45.
New to GNOME extensions? Learn how to install GNOME extension on Ubuntu, then take a look at the best GNOME extensions currently available.