Chromebooks: How do you enable and disable the touchpad?

Are you finding dirt and gunk on the touchpad of your Chromebook? A good idea is to turn off the touchpad first before doing a quick wipe down. Your touchpad might need to be disabled if the device isn’t working properly or you have an external USB mouse or Bluetooth keyboard. This tutorial will show you how to deactivate and enable your touchpad on Chromebook.

Use Chrome Flags to Enable/Disable the Touchpad

An experimental Chrome Flag You can disable this feature to make your computer unavailable Chromebook’s touchpad You can also use the keyboard. Although the feature may not work with all Chromebooks or ChromeOS versions of ChromeOS, it is worth trying.

You can disable your Chromebook’s touchpad

To turn your touchpad off, open Google Chrome and then follow these steps.

1. Press the Search or Launcher key Use the keyboard on your Chromebook.
2. Use type or paste chrome://flags/#ash-debug-shortcuts Press the Enter key and search button Enter.

3. Type keyboard Use the search box to open the Debugging keyboard shortcuts Select from drop-down menu Enabled.

Google Chrome allows you to also use the “Debugging keyboard shortcuts” feature.

Use type or paste chrome://flags/#ash-debug-shortcuts Press the “Chrome browser address bar” button Enter.

4. Select Restart or Relaunch to continue. It will restart your Chromebook, and then disable the touchpad.

Take into account that Chrome Flag This is an experimental and unstable version that may not be compatible with your Chromebook. You might also experience other components malfunctioning, such as your keyboard and touchpad.

Our Chromebook with ChromeOS 108.0.5359.111 was our test device. We were unable to disable the touchpad. The touchpad was disabled when we enabled the flag “Debugging keyboard shortcuts” Chromebooks with ChromeOS 80 or older. Chrome’s latest operating systems don’t appear to have the flag working.

You may be unable disable your touchpad because your Chromebook doesn’t have the flag “Debugging keyboard shortcuts”. You may also find that the manufacturer of your Chromebook has disabled certain functionality.

Chromebook’s touchpad can be re-enabled

Without having to go into the Chrome Flags menu, or restart your Chromebook, you can reset your touchpad.

Press Search + Shift + T To turn the touchpad of your Chromebook back on, press and hold down on your keyboar.

To test if the touchpad on your Chromebook works, you can tap, swipe, and touch it. If your Chromebook’s touchpad fails to detect touch gestures and swipe gestures, restart it.

Use Tablet Mode to Disable the Touchpad

Chromebook can be used as a tablet, but it will not work with its trackpad or touchpad. To put your touchscreen or convertible Chromebook into tablet mode, flip the screen on its hinge. You can then disable the touchpad or physical keyboard of your Chromebook and open its on-screen keyboard.

An external mouse can be connected to your Chromebook and used in tablet mode. However, it will switch back into laptop mode.

Disable Tap-to-Click

ChromeOS’ “Tap-to click” feature lets you left-click by simply tapping on the touchpad or trackpad. You can disable the feature if your touchpad is accidentally tapped or brushed too many times.

You can disable tap-to-click but it will not affect the whole touchpad functionality. This will stop your Chromebook accidentally tapping the touchpad from clicking or selecting items.

1. Open your Chromebook’s Settings App, Select Device Click the sidebar and choose Mouse and touchpad.

2. Toggle off Enable tap-to-click On the page for touchpad settings.

Ask for technical support

Contrary to ChromeOS, it is easier to use Deactivate the trackpad/touchpad for Windows and Mac computers. There are several ways to disable the touchpad of your Google Chromebook. If your touchpad needs to be disengaged, you can contact the manufacturer of your Chromebook or visit a computer repair store.