How to disable the touchpad?

Question

I want my touchpad to be disabled when I use my mouse. How can I do that? touchpad-indicator has stopped working on 11.10. It used to work on 11.04. Gnome3 is not a solution as I don't like it and find it buggy.

Answer 1

Run the following command in a terminal:

xinput list

You will get an output that looks like this:

⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Laptop_Integrated_Webcam_1.3M             id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]

It displays all the input devices connected. Note that they all have an id. Since 12 is the id for my touchpad, running the following command will disable it.

xinput set-prop 12 "Device Enabled" 0

In Ubuntu versions >12.04 you can also directly disable via

xinput --disable 12

(and enable via a similar command)

Answer 2

1. Search for mouse
2. Click on Mouse and Touchpad
3. Click off/on button to the right of touchpad settings.

Answer 3

check this link out: How to disable-enable touchpad in ubuntu 11.10

The answer found there is really neat:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install touchpad-indicator

After this you will get a switch in your notification area.

The only thing I would wish is to be able to set the switch key to Fn+F8 (which is a touchpad key switch on my keyboard...

Answer 4

Based on answer given by @Peng Wu I created a bash script that can be used...

#!/bin/bash

declare -i ID
ID=`xinput list | grep -Eo 'TouchPad\s*id\=[0-9]{1,2}' | grep -Eo '[0-9]{1,2}'`

xinput set-prop $ID "Device Enabled" 0

echo 'Touchpad has been disabled.'

You can manually run it or run it on start. Then you can make the script run at boot.

Another bash script to toggle touchpad:

#!/bin/bash

declare -i ID
ID=`xinput list | grep -Eo 'TouchPad\s*id\=[0-9]{1,2}' | grep -Eo '[0-9]{1,2}'`
declare -i STATE
STATE=`xinput list-props $ID|grep 'Device Enabled'|awk '{print $4}'`
if [ $STATE -eq 1 ]
then
    xinput disable $ID
    echo "Touchpad disabled."
else
    xinput enable $ID
    echo "Touchpad enabled."
fi

Answer 5

Simply, in a terminal:

synclient TouchpadOff=1

However, the above seems to not work anymore in Ubuntu 16.04. In this case, then xinput still works:

xinput set-prop `xinput --list | awk '/[Tt]ouch[Pp]ad.*pointer/ {print $7}' | sed 's/id=\(.*\)/\1/'` "Device Enabled" 0

Answer 6

UPDATED SOLUTION:

Instead of xinput, with id variables that can change, better use synclient as indicated in other answers, like this.

sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

To turn off touchpad:

synclient TouchpadOff=1

To turn on:

synclient TouchpadOff=0

To be used with launchers or shortcuts as said below.

---

This is just the application of the commands in this answer under the present question. The solution below is limited to Xfce/Xubuntu, but although I made it by chance, I find it too elegant not too share it here. So, I created a separate question initially, just for Xubuntu. That question cannot but be a duplicate of this one and may be closed for this reason, that's why I dare to re-post that answer here.

---

It is about these two commands:

Disable:

xinput set-prop 15 "Device Enabled" 0

Enable:

xinput set-prop 15 "Device Enabled" 1

The id number will be found by running

xinput list

Answer 7

This is how to disable your touchpad automatically on startup This method will disable the pad more safely by name rather than by id. Here is how to get the name of your touchpad:

$ xinput list --name-only | grep -i Touchpad
ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad

Create a bash script file. I added the file to ubuntu Startup Applications so it runs on every restart. Remember to make the file executable. Here are the contents:

#!/bin/bash
$ xinput disable 'ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad'

Answer 8

I use the following script to enable/disable touchpad. I also assigned it to the keyboard shortcut.

Usage: toggle_touchpad.sh [on|off]

if you run without arguments then it will simply invert the current state of he touchpad.

#!/bin/bash
# toggle_touchpad.sh

is_off=`synclient | grep -Pio "TouchpadOff.*?(\d)" | grep -Eo "[01]"`

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    echo "Inverting touchpad state"

    if [ "$is_off" -eq '0' ];then
        synclient TouchpadOff=1
        notify-send "Touchpad Disabled"
    else
        synclient TouchpadOff=0
        notify-send "Touchpad Enabled"
    fi

else

    if [ "$1" == "on" ]; then
        echo "Turning on touchpad"
        synclient TouchpadOff=0
        notify-send "Touchpad Enabled"
    elif [ "$1" == "off" ]; then
        echo "Turning off touchpad"
        synclient TouchpadOff=1
        notify-send "Touchpad Disabled"
    else
        echo "Unknown arg! Pass no args or on/off !"
    fi

fi

Answer 9

This worked for me in 11.10 :

⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Laptop_Integrated_Webcam_1.3M             id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]

It displays all the input devices connected. Note that they all have an id. Since 12 is the id for my touchpad, running the following command will disable it.

xinput set-prop 12 "Device Enabled" 0

and I would put it in .bashrc or whatever except that I'm not sure that device 12 (actually 11 for me) is always the touchpad.

Now if I could just get the up-arrow in nautilius to work and see the .dirs

Answer 10

Define keyboard shortcuts

^{(this answer was copied from an invalid edit)}

Instead of remembering that command every time you wish to enable/disable the touchpad, you can instead add it as a keyboard combination shortcut.

Under preferences in Keyboard Shortcuts click add. Give a name to the shortcut like "Disable Touchpad" or something and add the command you discovered above

xinput set-prop <id> "Device Enabled" 0

and click apply. Then add another shortcut called "Enable Touchpad" or something similar to the first and change the previous command to a 1 at the end

xinput set-prop <id> "Device Enabled" 1

those are the off/on respectivly.

Now that those are added, click on Enable Touchpad's Shortcut column (should say 'disabled') and type the keyboard shortcut you want it to be, I chose Win+1 (Hold Windows Key and press the number 1). Do the same for Disable Touchpad, I chose Win+2.

Now Win+1 enables my touchpad and Win+2 disables it.

Answer 11

In my case, fn+F9 is mapped into Touchpad toggle.

But the key does nothing just showing touch pad icon on the right-top of the screen like this.

---

Here is a solution for toggling touchpad just by pressing a shortcut.

1. Getting id of your touchpad

$ xinput list

2. Writing a script for toggling touchpad

So I got a bash script file for toggling touchpad with 'xinput' command(original script can be found here).

In my case, the id of touch pad was 12.

#!/bin/bash

device=12
state=`xinput list-props "$device" | grep "Device Enabled" | grep -o "[01]$"`

if [ "$state" -eq '1' ];then
  xinput --disable "$device"
else
  xinput --enable "$device"
fi

Save the above script file as .toggleTouchPad.sh at where you want.

3. Keyboard shortcut for running the script

And last step is adding keyboard shortcut to run the script file.

So just write sh /PATH/TO/SCRIPT in the Command of your shortcut window .

4. Try the shortcut

Press the shortcut and check if touchpad is toggled.

It worked at ASUS A556UA Laptop and Ubuntu14.04 x64 installed.

---

Thing to be improved.

• assigning Touchpad toggle key to the above custom shortcut would not work
• it just shows touch pad icon on the right-top of the screen
• so I had to assign another key(super+F9) rather than Touchpad toggle(fn+F9) key.

please suggest a way to assign Touchpad toggle key to a custom shortcut for complete solution

Answer 12

For Ubuntu 16.04

For disable touchpad:

xinput --disable $(xinput --list | grep -i 'touchpad' | grep -o 'id=[0-9]*' | sed 's/id=//') 

and for enable touchpad:

xinput --enable $(xinput --list | grep -i 'touchpad' | grep -o 'id=[0-9]*' | sed 's/id=//')

Answer 13

https://bitbucket.org/barseghyanartur/xinput

It's a very tiny code which allows you to disable/enable the touchpad from terminal.

Simply follow the Instructions below:

Install:

$ pip install xinput

Disable touchpad:

$ disable-touchpad

Enable touchpad:

$ enable-touchpad

Answer 14

First check if your laptop has enable/disable touchpad keyboard shortcut, by any chance! On my Lenovo Thinkpad T500 it's Fn+F8

Answer 15

install the Jupiter app. You can disable the touchpad with it and it is remembered. This has worked effectively for me on both a Lenovo IdeaPad and ThinkPad on 11.04, 11.10, and 12.04.

Answer 16

Just add a couple of bash functions to your .bashrc to give you a togggle...

#toggle-touchpad on|off
function touchpadon  { /usr/bin/xinput --enable $(xinput --list | grep -Eo 'TouchPad\s*id\=[0-9]{1,2}' | grep -Eo '[0-9]{1,2}') ; echo "touchpad enabled";}
function touchpadoff  { /usr/bin/xinput --disable $(xinput --list | grep -Eo 'TouchPad\s*id\=[0-9]{1,2}' | grep -Eo '[0-9]{1,2}') ; echo "touchpad disabled";}

Answer 17

I tried using the laptop function key (fn) to disable the pointer and it works. It did not work during my 11.04 days though, so give that a try.

Answer 18

It is actually very simple to disable touchpad in Ubuntu. Just remove the package xserver-xorg-input-synaptics that is required for using touchpads in Ubuntu!

sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

It is the only way to disable touchpad permanently that worked for me. The other ways were only temporary:

xinput list
xinput set-prop IDOFTOUCHPAD "Device Enabled" 0 
synclient TouchpadOff=1 

I am using LXDE and I was not able to automatically disable the touchpad by adding these lines to ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart or /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart with a @-prefix. It was just ignored.

And I tried disabling touchpad with dconf-editor (org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad) and gconf-editor (desktop.gnome.peripherals.TOUCHPADNAME), but both did not work. The settings on dconf-editor have no effect at all and on gconf-editor it keeps showing the error message "This key has no schema".

Answer 19

So, by combining Krzysztof Tomaszewski and JaeJun LEE's answers I came to this solution.

Create the following toggleTouchPad.sh script and save it wherever you want:

#!/bin/bash
device=14
state=`xinput list-props "$device" | grep "Device Enabled" | grep -o "[01]$"`
if [ "$state" -eq '1' ];then
  xinput --disable "$device" && sleep 1 && xdotool key 201
else
  xinput --enable "$device" && sleep 1 && xdotool key 200
fi

where 14 is your TouchDevice Id (refer to JaeJun LEE's answer)

1. Go to Ubuntu Settings -> Devices -> Keyboard

2. At the end of the list, click on + to add a new custom shortcut

3. Name it Toggle Touchpad, with Command /path/to/.toggleTouchPad.sh and whatever key combination you'd want (I've just chosen Super + F7).

Now, whenever you hit your chosen key combination, it not only toggle the Touchpad but it also shows a notification icon thanks to xdotool

Answer 20

My solution is the following tp script:

#!/bin/bash
TT=`xinput --list | grep -i touchpad | sed -e "
s/(// 
s/)//
s/ //g
"`
set $TT

(( $2 ))

xinput list | grep -iq mouse &&{
   xinput --disable $id
}||{
   xinput --enable $id
}

The touchpad is disabled if a mouse is detected, and enable if not.
The touchpad id is found by the script.

Answer 21

Like so often this is not really one problem but two.
So first we get the touchpads id.
Then we can disable and enable, that given id.

# Get the touchpad's id. 
touchpad_id=$(
    xinput list                 |
        grep Touchpad           |
        grep -E -o id=[0-9]*    |   
        grep -o [0-9]*          \
        ;
    );
Enable.
xinput --enable ${touchpad_id};
Disable.
xinput --disable ${touchpad_id};

Answer 22

If your laptop keyboard doesn't have a touchpad on/off special-function key, maybe you can find an on-screen virtual keyboard that simulates it (although I haven't found one).

Short of that, this works well:

sudo apt-get install gpointing-device-settings

Answer 23

What worked for me on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with Dell Laptop

I wanted disable the pointer which is in the middle of the keyboard and creates a lot of issues while typing. So:

$ xinput list
 ⎡ Virtual core pointer                     id=2
 ⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer               id=4
 ⎜   ↳ Wacom Graphire2 4x5 eraser               id=9
 ⎜   ↳ Wacom Graphire2 4x5 cursor               id=10
 ⎜   ↳ Wacom Graphire2 4x5                      id=11
 ⎜   ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint TouchPad         id=14
 ⎜   ↳ Macintosh mouse button emulation         id=15
 ⎜   ↳ DualPoint Stick                          id=13
 ⎣ Virtual core keyboard                    id=3
     ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard              id=5
     ↳ Video Bus                                id=6
     ↳ Power Button                             id=7
     ↳ Sleep Button                             id=8
     ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard             id=12

The device I want to disable has id 13. Use xinput to list its properties:

$ xinput -list-props 13
 Device 'DualPoint Stick':
    Device Enabled (115):   0
 [...several lines removed...]
 $ xinput -set-prop 13 115 0

This has disabled the Dualpoint stick. But none of the other answers worked for me. I did

Install dconf-tools:

sudo apt-get install  dconf-tools
dconf-editor

Then go to org -> gnome -> settings-daemon -> peripherals -> touchpad and uncheck touchpad-enabled field

Answer 24

I found a nice solution of creating a key binding that will invoke the command:

xdotool key 199

where 199 is a keycode recognized as XF86TouchpadToggle. This way one can make a key combination of his/her choice to behave like a special key some laptops have to toggle the touchpad as desktop environments like Mate or Cinnamon handle it great. You can check keycodes by this command:

xmodmap -pke

I have created a how-to on my blog: https://artofcode.wordpress.com/2017/10/01/how-to-add-a-key-binding-to-toggle-a-touchpad-under-linux/

Answer 25

To disable my dell latitude's middle stick, I put this on .profile of Ubuntu so every-time I start/reboot my laptop, it will disable that input.

I used the --id-only to avoid mismatch in grep

declare -i ID
ID=`xinput list --id-only 'AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint Stick' | grep -Eo '[0-9]{1,2$
declare -i STATE
STATE=`xinput list-props $ID|grep 'Device Enabled'|awk '{print $4}'`
if [ $STATE -eq 1 ]
then
    echo "id" $ID
    xinput disable $ID
    echo "Touchpad disabled."
else
    echo "id" $ID
    xinput enable $ID
    echo "Touchpad enabled."
fi

Answer 26

Alternative: using awk and xbindkeys (automatic detection)

First please add touchpad_toggle script in your ~/bin directory:

#!/bin/bash
tpad_device=`xinput list | grep Touchpad | awk '{print $6}' | sed -e 's/id=//'`
tpad_enable=`xinput --list-props $tpad_device | grep 'Device Enable' | awk '{print $4}'`

if [ "$tpad_enable" == "1" ]; then
  xinput --disable $tpad_device
elif [ "$tpad_enable" == "0" ]; then
  xinput --enable $tpad_device
else
  echo "!WARNNING touchpad device not found!"
fi

In your ~/.xbindkeysrc add:

#touchpad_toggle
"touchpad_toggle"
    m:0x0 + c:199
    XF86TouchpadToggle 

Answer 27

I created a script before on another question: https://askubuntu.com/a/874865/433961

It finds and toggles TouchPad device. You can configure a custom shortcut to it in system settings.

#!/bin/bash
read TPdevice <<< $( xinput | sed -nre '/TouchPad|Touchpad/s/.id=([0-9]).*/\1/p' )
state=$( xinput list-props "$TPdevice" | grep "Device Enabled" | grep -o "[01]$" )
if [ "$state" -eq '1' ];then
    xinput --disable "$TPdevice" && notify-send -i emblem-nowrite "Touchpad" "Disabled"
else
    xinput --enable "$TPdevice" && notify-send -i input-touchpad "Touchpad" "Enabled"
fi

I'm setting Ctrl+Shift+F9 for toggle touchpad enable and disable like this:

Update: You may need to make your script to executable with command chmod +x filename or input /bin/bash /filepath to Command field of Custom shortcut window.

Answer 28

Alternative solution which works for all touchpads, no id needed.

open a terminal and write "gedit toggle_touchpad.sh"

#!/bin/bash
condition="$(gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad touchpad-enabled)"

if [ "$condition" == "false" ]; then
     gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad touchpad-enabled true
elif [ "$condition" == "true" ]; then
    gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad touchpad-enabled false
fi

Save the file and exit. Now you have a file with the name "toggle_touchpad.sh"

Run the command chmod +x toggle_touchpad.sh to make the file executable.

Place the file in any folder you like. Let us assume that you have it in the folder /home/username/myscripts/.

From the menu on the top-right go to system-settings->keyboard->shortcuts->custom-shortcuts.

Create a new shortcut and put as name whatever you want. Put as command /home<username>;/myscripts/toggle_touchpad.sh where "username" is your username

Assign whatever keyboard shortcut you want.

Ready :)

P.S. Personally I put the file in the /opt/myscripts/ folder but in order to put it there you should run the following commands after creating the file:

sudo mkdir /opt/myscripts/

sudo mv toggle_touchpad.sh /opt/myscripts/

sudo chown <username>:<username> /opt/myscripts/toggle_touchpad.sh

chmod +x  /opt/myscripts/toggle_touchpad.sh

where "username" is your username

Then when you will create the shortcut you will use the path "/opt/myscripts/toggle_touchpad.sh" instead of the one mentioned above

Answer 29

This method works, but I can't seem to use the "win" button. So I used the CtrlF1 & F2 for it.

Currently my laptop OS is ubuntu 14.04LTS.

Oh, need to find out the xinput < id > with the command below. For Ubuntu 14.04, it is the "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"

xinput list
SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                  id=###

Answer 30

I tried all the previous answers here without success.
What worked for me on Ubuntu 16.10 was

killall syndaemon 
syndaemon -i 1 -KRd

You may want to change the value 1 to 0.5.