I don’t know why but my Magic Mouse never reconnects automatically to my Mac Pro after I change its batteries. It works on my MacBook Pro, but on the Mac Pro I have to reconnect manually.
The problem is that manually connecting a Bluetooth mouse isn’t very easy using just your keyboard. That is, it isn’t easy if you don’t know how. Here’s the trick.
Open System Preferences and navigate to Keyboard->Keyboard Shortcuts. Make sure the Full Keyboard Access checkbox is set to All controls. Then, also in System Preferences, navigate to Bluetooth and check the box that reads Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar. Quit System Preferences.
Now, when you want to connect a Bluetooth mouse, press ctrl-F8 (you may have to press fn-ctrl-F8 depending on how you’ve configured the function keys in System Preferences->Keyboard). This will set the focus to the right side of the system menu bar and highlight the leftmost system-owned icon (as opposed to icons that belong to third-party apps). Now simply use the arrow keys to navigate to the Bluetooth icon, press the down key, navigate to the Bluetooth mouse you want to connect (I’m assuming it’s already been paired), select Connect in its sub-menu and press Enter. After a couple of seconds your Bluetooth mouse should be connected.
There’s actually another way to reconnect the Magic Mouse using your keyboard that I’ll mention here for the sake of completeness. You can launch System Preferences using Spotlight, navigate to the Bluetooth preference pane and tab your way through the pane and ultimately select Connect in the cog menu below the list of Bluetooth devices. But I find that way takes longer and isn’t as easy as the aforementioned method.
Potentially Related
- Fixing Mac Pro Bluetooth and Magic Mouse Issues
- Increasing Magic Mouse Tracking Speed
- Quickly toggle function keys on the Apple Keyboard
- MenuPop & MenuEverywhere
- Adding an External Bluetooth Antenna to a Mac Pro
