How to fix the scroll wheel on your Apple mighty mouse

I love the scroll wheel on top of the Apple mighty mouse, but after a while the sweat and oil on your finger combined with grit and dust clogs the whole thing up. This manifests itself in the scroll wheel not scrolling down, or up, or in worst cases, not scrolling all. Here’s how to fix the problem.

I rang Apple and said my scroll wheel was not working and they gave me this simple but effective solution over the phone.

Simply take a sheet of clean white paper, put it on top of the mouse, and press down on the scroll wheel with your finger, but with the paper between your finger and the scroll wheel. Press quite hard with it and at the same time scroll around – moving it up and down and round and round. Move to a different area of the paper and give it another go.

The paper seems to absorb all the oil and gunk off the scroll wheel, and the scroll wheel in turn when it is clean must absorb the gunk off the sensors or whatever is underneath it.

I have found that a better method, especially with a dirty mouse, is to turn the mouse upside down and run the scroll-wheel in circles on a clean piece of paper until all the dirt comes off.

Make sure you use a brand new clean piece of paper.

Do not use alcohol. The rubber scroll wheel is sensitive and the alcohol is not needed.

No not use water. You don’t want water getting into the inside of your mouse!

It’s just dirty. It’s funny that I could not find this information anywhere on Google or on the Apple web page.

This clean paper trick works amazingly well.

Written by Wayne Connor
Mac user since 1996
Helping people master their Macs since 2005


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304 responses to “How to fix the scroll wheel on your Apple mighty mouse”

  1. Ben

    well I am very happy that it works again .. but at the same time time a bit disappointed by the too sensible apple engineering .. I have worked for many years with various PC mouses without problem .. and after only 2 months of usage with this mouse I get this kind of problem …. Apple product are so sacred that one need to wash his hand before usage or wear white glove :-)

  2. Jo Gleeson

    FANTASTIC! Should have seen the gunge that came out. I finished the job with a little bit of spray and wipe on a tissue and it removed an incredible amount of more gunge and cleaned around the outside of the button. Its been AGES since Ive used the little nipple!

  3. Chet

    Great!

    it work.. My scroll back to work again.
    but i make some different.

    – i put the paper on mouse pad (soft mouse pad)
    – put the mouse up side down.
    – roll/move the ball over the paper (i change the paper around 3 time)
    – fist time i spray some alcohol to the ball and roll it
    – second move the ball over the page (if it had some dirty out put a little alcohol on it)
    – third move over the dry paper.

    all done! my mice back to work fine again.

  4. NepalKat

    I used your method and may have come up with an even better way to do this. I used a Clorox Disinfectant Wipe instead of the plain paper. (You can buy a tube of these in any grocery store.) I did everything else you suggested, and BINGO! It now works like it did when it was right out of the box. Many thanks.

  5. Tess

    Thank you so much! I thought my mouse was broken and this has saved me buying another one. It now works perfectly.

  6. David

    Ha! Just worked for me too. Simple solutions are always the best

  7. WOW! How wonderful to find such a simple solution and to actually have it work! If EVERYTHING were this easy. Thank you so much for sharing this with us!!

  8. Mary

    Worked like a charm, and 20 seconds later I was back in business. THANK YOU!

  9. Albert

    Wow, thank you! It’s a quick, easy, short and simple solution – works for me!

  10. Michelle

    I LOVE YOU!!!!!

  11. Barbara

    Perfect solution! Thank you

  12. April

    After several hours trying to find a solution, I found your answer. And it works! Thank you!

  13. That didn’t work for me but spraying the scroll ball with screen cleaner did!

  14. James

    Holy shizzle did not think that would work but it did. You rock.

    1. Yes it’s amazing how well this works!
      And if it doesn’t work – just keep going with another sheet of clean paper till it does! I had a very dirty mouse that took 3 sheets of clean paper once. I think all the grease rubs off onto the paper.

  15. Aeron

    Simple, but very effective; works excellent again after a couple of weeks without being able to scroll up. Thanks

  16. Fantastic! Really, it is the simple ideas that often work best…

  17. Blue

    It took several tries and I had to use screen cleaner as well. Worked!

  18. HunkaBurninLove

    I should have tried this earlier.

    My mouse wouldn’t scroll up.

    I initially tried prying apart the bottom section to try to get to the insides. Now I have a little piece of plastic rattling in the inside of the mouse :(

    But I tried your suggestion on a paper towel, and it works fine (except for the little piece of plastic i broke off and is now rattling around) :)

  19. Gail

    Thank you! I tried the alcohol/cloth route with no success. This method cleared a speck of gunk the consistency of pencil eraser. It worked!!!

  20. George Sawyn

    I did a google search for this problem, found this page, read the solution and thought, “No, it couldn’t be this easy…” It worked. Unbelievable…

    1. It is amazing how well it works! It leaves a trail of ‘gunk’ all over the paper.

  21. Monette Velasco

    This just worked. Doesn’t matter what color the paper is. :) You just made my day. Thanks.

  22. Tim Kramer

    Worked great first time on my wired mouse. Thank you!

  23. Your a legend!~ so easy thanks

  24. Stacy Jacob

    Fabulous! Thanks for the tip. I have tried everything. This worked like a charm!

  25. Bazza

    worked a treat!
    thanks for sharing

    off to rub sheets of paper on other misbehaving items ;-)

  26. john Scanlon

    bought a wired mouse. it would not scroll horizontal left & right. vertical up and down ok. tried suggested remedy, still did not work.
    Took it back to apple @ watford, got a replacement.
    Same problem with second wired mouse. tried remedy, no good.
    What do i do now?
    takes all day to go to watford apple and back.

    1. Try it at the Apple shop before you taker it home. It might be your computer – take it into the shop with the mouse? Have a look in preferences, under “Mouse” and also check under “Accessibility Options”, it might be that you have scrolling turned off!

  27. Maggie

    Thank you so much! This didn’t work with my finger or my hand, so I turned the mouse upside down on the paper on my desk and scrubbed away. Finally cleared up!

  28. Ed

    Thanks!! Work great!

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