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Mac Problem - When moving the mouse moves the entire enlarged screen
I’ve owned my iMac for just a few months now. I love it, but the most frustrating hiccups I’ve had is when I’ve had my toddler, Rocco, on my lap and he’s gone crazy on the keyboard. He’s already renamed my hard drive, but the worst thing that happened was when the whole screen became larger and would move around with the mouse. It really freaked me out. It makes the computer only just usable. Just usable enough to try to find the fix.
The first time this happened was about a month ago, and I managed to google the answer. I promptly forget what the trick was, and today it happened again.
Well, I very much freaked out this time when I just couldn’t find the same web page with Google as I had before.
But I did find the fix. It turns out that Rocco had pressed the Control key while I was scrolling up a web page with the middle scroll button of my mighty mouse. That made the screen zoom in wildly.
All I needed to do was hold down the control key and scroll downwards with the scroll button.
I’m posting this partly as a reminder note to myself for next time Rocco does this trick, and for anyone else who has this happen to them.
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Thxs… saved my butt. it was my son…. not Rocco probably same IQ
Yang Suh
on August 5th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Glad you found the solution here, Yang. Every day I get visits to this page from people with this problem searching for a fix on Google.
Trisha Cupra
on August 6th, 2008 at 8:39 am
My baby girl….did this to me too…Thanks saved me a headache!
Sakred1
on October 26th, 2008 at 4:17 am
@Sakred1: Glad it helped. Maybe I should write a book called, “Help! My Baby Broke My Computer!”
Trisha Cupra
on October 26th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Wow. What a great, cool, fast fix! lol
Too bad I couldn’t find the answer when I checked my system preferences, etc.
I’ll blame my wife! (But it could have been MY son too!)
AtechDad
on December 4th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I remember checking my System Preferences, too. It’s a real mystery until you realize what actually happened!
Trisha Cupra
on December 17th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Thanks so much, this was driving me crazy. you are a lifesaver!!!
ps. my kid did the same thing!!
Kenna's mom
on December 21st, 2008 at 10:17 am
thank you for the tip
baris
on January 22nd, 2009 at 3:26 am
Glad it helped.
Trisha Cupra
on January 22nd, 2009 at 9:25 am
thanks so much!
milla
on February 26th, 2009 at 9:29 am
This has been driving me CRAZY the past 3 days. I use my iMac for work and I thought I was losing my mind at first- thank goodness I found this and my screen is standing still =) Thank you!
Mariah
on April 10th, 2009 at 12:39 am
thnx… i thought my friend screwed up our mac! my parents would have killed me if i didnt find out how to fix it
N-man
on April 30th, 2009 at 5:02 am
Thanks so much for this info…the rolling around screen was driving me crazy!!
Lynn
on May 5th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Thanks! Needed this fix.
pbb
on May 18th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
you saved me from killing myself.
Ron Eddy
on June 16th, 2009 at 4:22 am
Ack! My son does this all the time and before I found this I would have to turn off the computer to get it to go away. Thanks! Clearly Mac designers were not factoring in small children who love pressing buttons!
Meghan
on July 14th, 2009 at 12:23 am
thank you, I almost banned my 8 yo daughter from my mac. I was sitting in the room when she enlarged the screen.
thanx again
Jeff
jeff
on July 31st, 2009 at 10:16 am
same happened just now with my daughter Ciara - thanks for the solution, I told my wife I could find a solution in 2 minutes… it took a half an hour..
her solution also works… restart the computer
Brian
on September 9th, 2009 at 6:11 am
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I’ve been stressing this same problem for over an hour. I finally walked away, came back decided to quit trying to fix it myself and let google lead me… to you!
Thanks!
Jennifer
on November 10th, 2009 at 3:48 am
Thanks Trisha! I had this problem and I couldn’t figure it out…you were the first hit I got on google when troubleshooting…Thanks again.
Traci
Traci
on February 3rd, 2010 at 10:28 am
Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I thank u soooooooo much!!!!!!!
It happened to me several times and I was mad too. And it happened again today just now for three times. I didn’t know how to fix it, so I just keep restarting Mac. Thanks for the tip!!!!
Park
on February 18th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Thanks so much…my 8 month old baby girl…
Rahul
on February 19th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Oh my gosh! Thank you so much for posting this valuable information! I always had to restart my computer when the screen suddenly was zoomed in and was moving all about with my cursor. Now I know the cause and how to fix it!
:D 
Jess
on March 4th, 2010 at 8:27 pm