Touchpad, Trackpad & Mouse Tester

A free browser-based tester for your touchpad, trackpad, and mouse. Move, click, scroll and gesture — the tool shows you exactly what your browser is seeing from your pointing device, so you can tell a hardware fault from a driver glitch in under a minute.

Prefer deeper mouse diagnostics? Try mousetester.uk for click latency, precision movement and rogue input checks, or trackpadTester.html for the full trackpad suite. Testing a game controller instead? gamepadtester.uk handles drift, latency and button checks.

Move or click your mouse to see the data.
Perform trackpad gestures or touches to see the data.

Trackpad sensitivity grid

Drag your finger or pointer across the grid below. Every cell should light up. Dead cells usually mean a dead zone on the touchpad surface or a driver that is filtering out light contact.

How to read your touchpad test results

A touchpad is a deceptively complex piece of hardware. A capacitive grid under the surface senses the tiny change in electrical field that your finger creates, a controller chip turns that into pointer movement and gesture events, a driver passes those on to the operating system, and then the operating system hands them to your browser. When your trackpad misbehaves, the fault can live at any of those layers — and the whole point of testing in a browser is to work out which layer is lying to you.

If this tester shows smooth, continuous pointer movement and the sensitivity grid lights up every cell you touch, the hardware and driver are healthy. Any problem you are seeing in other applications is almost certainly a setting in that application, a gesture conflict, or an operating-system acceleration curve — not a failing touchpad.

The faults you are most likely to find

Dead zones — if the sensitivity grid has cells that refuse to light up no matter how slowly you drag over them, you have a dead zone. This is usually a failing section of the capacitive sensor or physical damage to the surface. Common causes are liquid ingress, a dropped laptop, or the flex cable under the palm rest working loose. On older MacBooks and some ThinkPads, re-seating that ribbon cable is a fifteen-minute fix. On sealed ultrabooks, it normally means a replacement trackpad assembly.

Ghost taps and phantom clicks — the cursor jumps or clicks on its own while you are not touching the trackpad. This is almost always one of three things. First, a dirty or greasy surface confusing the capacitive sensor — wipe with a slightly damp microfibre cloth and retest. Second, over-sensitive palm rejection making the driver think your wrist is a finger — lower the sensitivity in your operating system settings. Third, moisture under the clickpad, which is common on laptops that have spent time in humid environments. If ghost taps persist here in the tester after cleaning and adjusting sensitivity, the hardware needs service.

Scroll wheel drift and reversal — mouse scroll wheels use a small optical or mechanical encoder. When the encoder wears, your scrolls start producing erratic deltas, occasional jumps, or even the wrong direction. Roll the wheel slowly over the mouse info panel above and watch the reported values — a healthy wheel gives you even, consistent steps. Anything wildly erratic means the encoder is on its way out. Many gaming mice can be opened with a couple of screws to clean or replace the encoder for under a pound in parts.

Gestures that work in one app but not another — three and four-finger gestures are often handled by the operating system itself on macOS and Windows 11, which means they never reach the browser. That is not a fault. Single-finger drag, two-finger scroll, and pinch-to-zoom should all reach this tester. If they do not, check whether a touchpad driver utility (Elan, Synaptics, Precision Touchpad) has disabled them at the driver level.

Button click feel versus button click registration — modern trackpads have a single physical clicker under the whole surface, or no physical click at all (Apple Force Touch). If you get a satisfying click feel but this tester does not register the click event, the haptic engine is working but the click sensor has failed. If you get no click feel and no event, the clicker itself is done. Either way, it is a repair, not a software fix.

When to clean, when to replace

In practice, the majority of touchpad faults are solved by cleaning the surface with a slightly damp microfibre cloth and then checking the operating-system sensitivity settings. A good number of the remaining ones come down to a loose internal flex cable — on most laptops that means removing the bottom cover, disconnecting the battery, and re-seating the ribbon cable, which is a ten-to-fifteen minute job for anyone comfortable inside a laptop. Only a small fraction genuinely need a replacement trackpad assembly. Running through this tester first tells you for certain which category you are in before you order parts or book a repair.

Touchpad and mouse testing — frequently asked questions

Open this page, then move your finger or mouse across the tester area. The sensitivity grid at the bottom lights up every cell your pointer enters, which lets you see dead zones, stuck edges, or areas where the touchpad is losing contact. Try single-finger movement, then two-finger scroll, then multi-finger gestures. If the grid misses patches, the touchpad surface or its controller is struggling with those areas.

Phantom cursor jumps (sometimes called ghost taps) usually mean one of three things: a damaged trackpad surface, moisture or grease under the clickpad membrane, or an over-sensitive palm-rejection setting in the driver. Clean the surface first, then try lowering the touchpad sensitivity in your operating system settings. If the jumps continue here in the tester with clean hands and minimum sensitivity, the hardware needs service.

They are the same thing in everyday use. Apple tends to call theirs a trackpad, most Windows laptop makers call theirs a touchpad, and the underlying technology — a capacitive sensor that detects finger position and gestures — is the same. This tester works with both.

Not necessarily. Scroll the wheel gently over this tester and watch the reported delta values. Clean, consistent scrolls produce even numbers. A worn optical encoder produces erratic values, reversals, or occasional large jumps. If your scroll is erratic here but fine in some applications, check for any scroll-direction or acceleration settings in those apps first.

Yes, on macOS. The tester reads standard pointer and gesture events from the browser, so anything that macOS recognises as a pointing device will show up here. Three and four-finger gestures are typically handled by macOS system level and may not reach the browser — that is not a fault, it is just the operating system intercepting them first.

Yes. The entire test runs in your browser. Nothing about your pointer movement, clicks or gestures is sent to any server. You can go offline after loading the page and it still works, which is the simplest way to confirm it.