Trackpad · 1 minute
Does it track everywhere, and click evenly?
Hold the button down and sweep slowly across the whole pad, several times, covering every part of the glass. Watch for the line freezing or jumping — that is the pad losing your finger. The click itself is simulated by the Taptic Engine, so a corner that feels weaker than the others is an engine or sensor fault rather than ordinary wear.
Force
Safari only
Clicks
0 left · 0 right
Tracking drops
none
Gestures
0 / 5
A web page is given the cursor's position, not your finger's, so the corners of this box are not the corners of the trackpad and reaching them proves nothing about the glass. What does carry information is the line breaking up: sweep the whole surface and watch for freezes and jumps, which is what the counter above is looking for.
Only Safari reports trackpad force to a web page. In any other browser, press firmly in each corner and listen for the second haptic click instead — that is the same thing this meter would be measuring.
Two-finger gestures
Scroll and pinch over the pad above. Three- and four-finger swipes are taken by Mission Control before a browser sees them, so they cannot be tested here — try them anywhere on the desktop instead.
What a bad trackpad feels like
It clicks when the Mac is off
It should not. Apple Silicon trackpads are solid glass with no switch underneath, so a powered-down Mac feels completely rigid. A click means it is not the original assembly.
The pad sits proud of the case, or clicks stiffly
Very often a swollen battery pressing up from underneath. Stop using it and price in a battery replacement — a swollen cell is a safety issue, not a cosmetic one.
The cursor jumps while you drag
Usually a failing ribbon connection. It gets worse, and on these machines the pad is a full assembly replacement.
How did it track and click?
Worth buying alongside it
Warranty-backed alternatives and the accessories most Macs arrive missing
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