How to Enable and Disable the Touchpad on Chromebooks

For whatever reason you want to

Is dirt or gunk stuck on your Chromebook’s touchpad? Disabling the touchpad before giving it a quick wipe-down is a good idea. You might also want to disable your touchpad if it’s malfunctioning or you use an external (USB or Bluetooth) mouse. This tutorial covers different ways to disable and enable the touchpad on a Chromebook.

Enable/Disable Touchpad Through Chrome Flags

An experimentalChrome Flagfeature allows you to disable yourChromebook’s touchpadand keyboard. The feature doesn’t work on all Chromebooks and ChromeOS versions, but it’s worth giving a shot.

Open the Google Chrome browser and follow the steps below to turn off your touchpad.

You can also access the “Debugging keyboard shortcuts” option through Google Chrome.

Type or pastechrome://flags/#ash-debug-shortcutsin the Chrome browser address bar and pressEnter. That should open the Flags app and highlight “Debugging keyboard shortcuts.”

Remember that the Chrome Flag is experimental, unstable, and may not work on your Chromebook. Disabling your touchpad might even cause other hardware components, like your keyboard, to malfunction.

We couldn’t disable the touchpad on our test device—a Chromebook running ChromeOS 108.0.5359.111. However, enabling the “Debugging keyboard shortcuts” flag disabled the touchpad onChromebooks running ChromeOS 80or older. The flag doesn’t seem to work on newer versions of Chrome’s operating system.

If you can’t disable your touchpad, your Chromebook likely doesn’t support the “Debugging keyboard shortcuts” flag. It’s also possible that your Chromebook manufacturer disabled the functionality at the system level.

You can re-enable your touchpad without entering the Chrome Flags menu or rebooting your Chromebook.

PressSearch+Shift+Ton your keyboard to turn your Chromebook’s touchpad back on.

Touch, tap, or swipe your Chromebook’s touchpad and check if it works. Reboot your Chromebook if the touchpad doesn’t detect touch or swipe gestures.

Disable Touchpad Through Tablet Mode

Using your Chromebook as a tablet disables its touchpad or trackpad. If you have a convertible or touchscreen Chromebook, flip the screen over the hinge to put it into tablet mode. That’ll disable your Chromebook’s touchpad and physical keyboard, and open the on-screen keyboard.

You can connect and use an external mouse in tablet mode, but that’ll switch your Chromebook back to laptop mode.

Disable Tap-to-Click

The “Tap-to-click” feature allows you to left-click in ChromeOS by tapping the trackpad or touchpad. Disable the feature if you unintentionally tap or brush your touchpad too often.

Turning off “Tap-to-click” only disables touchpad taps, not the entire touchpad functionality. However, it stops your Chromebook from selecting or clicking items when you accidentally tap the touchpad.

Get Technical Support

Unlike ChromeOS, it’s easier todisable the trackpad/touchpad on Windows and Maccomputers. The methods above are currently the available workarounds for disabling the touchpad on Google Chromebook. Contact your Chromebook manufacturer or visit a computer repair shop if you desperately need to disable your touchpad.

Sodiq has written thousands of tutorials, guides, and explainers over the past 4 years to help people solve problems with Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows devices. He also enjoys reviewing consumer tech products (smartphones, smart home devices, accessories, etc.) and binge-watching comedy series in his spare time.Read Sodiq’s Full Bio

Your email address will not be published.Required fields are marked*

Comment*

Name*

Email*

Website

Welcome to Help Desk Geek- a blog full of tech tips from trusted tech experts. We have thousands of articles and guides to help you troubleshoot any issue. Our articles have been read over 150 million times since we launched in 2008.

HomeAbout UsEditorial StandardsContact UsTerms of Use

How to Enable and Disable the Touchpad on Chromebooks#

Enable/Disable Touchpad Through Chrome Flags#

Disable Touchpad Through Tablet Mode#

Disable Tap-to-Click#

Get Technical Support#