Mac tip: How to clean your Mighty Mouse’s scroll ball
I really like my Mighty Mouse. It’s elegant yet functional. However, the scroll ball hasn’t been working too well lately. My hands are sorta oily and it probably doesn’t help that I eat in front of the computer sometimes. Specifically, the down scroll doesn’t work well - it just sort of slips.
You can’t disassemble a Mighty Mouse easily (I’ve tried that but I didn’t like the surgery that was required.) I’ve tried blowing it with compressed air. That didn’t help. I’ve tried cleaning it with alcohol like you can do with tape heads - that didn’t seem to do it. I’ve tried applying a wet paper towel to the ball and rolling that on top. That seemed to help a bit but not for long.
So I found myself on Amazon about to buy a new one for $49 when I read the comments for the top review. “Larkenfield” suggested rolling it around on a clean sheet of paper for a minute. So I unplugged my Mighty Mouse, got a new sheet of printer paper (I used 96 brightness 24 weight Advantage Premium Laser Jet paper made by Georgia Pacific but I assume any clean sheet of paper will do), turned over the Mighty Mouse so the scroll ball was resting on the paper, then rolled it around in all sorts of directions for a minute. You can tell when it gets clean when you start hearing it scroll with a sort of clicking sound. And there you go - your Mighty Mouse’s scroll ball is unstuck.
It’s been working very well all day so hopefully that will keep this Mighty Mouse in good shape for a little while longer. Too bad there’s no Reset Mighty Mouse… menu option. :)
July 30th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I’ve had similar results using almost any kind of cloth. Rolling it on your jeans should do it. Unfortunately it looks like I’ve worn out the clicker on my Mighty Mouse– over the past couple of days I have to push really hard to get it to register a click.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:39 am
man i tried all the things but cracking it open…well, i even tried that but gave up when i realized that i was ruining the surface with the sharp blade…then i found this paper trick and it worked…no way, i sw this idea first and said no way, that’s stupid. i wonder why this would work and not solvent and cleaning cloth. wow. thx…
September 8th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Wow. This somehow really works. Thanks guys.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Wow! It works!
I just spent the past half an hour with lint-free cloths and screen-cleaner to no avail.
Great tip!
September 17th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Hey there, yeah it’s a cool trick, actually I rang the Apple support line for my still in warranty Mighty Mouse and the guy on the phone suggested this same trick telling me it’s used in the office quite a lot!
Ciao.
September 19th, 2008 at 9:57 am
J’ai essayé : ça marche ! Merci beaucoup !
I try it : it’s work ! Thank you very well !
September 21st, 2008 at 4:17 am
It works very well, thank you!!
October 11th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Started to notice my mouse sticking a bit over the last couple weeks, then today it wouldn’t scroll down at all (scrolling other directions worked fine though). Your tip saved the day. Thanks!
October 19th, 2008 at 8:53 am
I was really upset when my scroll ball stopped working. I was even MORE upset when I saw that the wireless mouse sold for 79.99! I don’t have the money to replace it. But this trick actually fixed it. I thought at first that there’s no chance this will work, but faced with the option of dropping 80 bucks on a replacement, I figured it’s worth the try. Works perfectly now. Thank you very much for posting this hint. You just saved me a bunch!
November 1st, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Wow, I tried this - I couldn’t believe the amount of goop that came out of that little opening. No wonder it wasn’t working!
Works great now. Thanks for the extra 49 buck.