macOS features a gesture-based system known as “Hot Corners.” This allows you to assign specific actions—like launching Mission Control, starting a Screen Saver, or putting the display to sleep—to the four physical corners of your screen. When you aggressively shove your mouse cursor into one of those corners, the action instantly triggers.
While some users find this incredibly convenient, Hot Corners are notoriously prone to accidental activation. If you are trying to click the Apple logo in the top-left, or trying to close a full-screen window in the top-right, slightly overshooting your target will instantly throw your Mac into Mission Control or lock your screen, interrupting your workflow. If you prefer to rely on keyboard shortcuts rather than mouse gymnastics, you can completely disable all Hot Corners.
How to Turn Off Hot Corners on a Mac
You must manually unbind the actions from the Desktop & Dock settings.
- Click the Apple Logo in the top-left corner of your Mac’s screen.
- Select System Settings (or System Preferences on older macOS versions).
- Scroll down the left-hand navigation sidebar and click on Desktop & Dock.
- Scroll all the way to the very bottom of the main window on the right.
- Click the Hot Corners… button.
- A small diagram of a computer screen will appear, with a drop-down menu situated at each of the four corners.
- Click each drop-down menu that currently has an action assigned to it.
- Select the blank hyphen (-) option at the very bottom of the list to remove the action.
- Once all four corners display a hyphen, click the Done button.
Your screen corners are now completely inert. You can violently throw your mouse cursor into any corner of the display without fear of accidentally triggering an unwanted system animation or locking your computer.