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iPadOS 13: How to use a mouse with your iPad

While it’s not enabled by default, Apple has brought the long-awaited mouse support to iPad with iPadOS 13. Follow along on for how to pair and use a mouse with your iPad as well as set up buttons for custom shortcuts.

The first release of iPadOS will bring mouse support to iPad as an accessibility feature. It’s easy to pair a device and enable mouse functionality and iPads even work with custom shortcut buttons on mice like Logitech’s MX Master.

iPadOS 13: How to use a mouse with your iPad

  1. Open Settings, then choose Accessibility
  2. Next tap Touch then AssistiveTouch and toggle it on
  3. Below tap Pointing Devices
  4. Choose Bluetooth Devices…
  5. Set your mouse Bluetooth to discoverable and select it when it appears on your iPad

Follow along below for how to customize mouse shortcut buttons along with a detailed walkthrough:

Next, tap AssistiveTouch and toggle it on as shown below.

Make sure your Bluetooth mouse is turned on and is discoverable. Tap Bluetooth Devices… to start the pairing process. 

Tap your mouse when it appears in settings.

Confirm the process when prompted.

When Assistive Touch is turned on and a mouse is paired, your iPad will show a circular cursor like below:

As shown above, click or tap the “i” to customize your mouse buttons.

Now choose Customize Additional Buttons…

iPadOS will have you click the mouse button you’d like to customize, then choose your preferred shortcut.

iPadOS supports multiple shortcut buttons, depending on the mouse you’re using.

Back under the main AssistiveTouch settings, you can adjust the tracking speed of your mouse from your iPad as well as opt to turn off the default AssistiveTouch menu icon.

You can actually use a mouse with iPhone in iOS 13 as well, but naturally, there’s much less value in using an external pointing device other than your finger on a smartphone 😅.

For more help getting the most out of your Apple devices, check out our how to guide as well as the following articles:

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

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