How to Disable Hot Corners on Mac?

May. 1, 2024

The Hot Corners on a Mac is one of the most productive macOS features. That said, some people may not find them that useful. Since Hot Corners are super sensitive and quick, it’s common for you to trigger them accidentally. I completely understand how annoying it is if those actions are triggered unknowingly, especially if you’re in the middle of something really important. Imagine locking your Mac’s screen every now & then, when you’re working on a deadline. If you find this feature annoying and burdensome rather than productive and useful, you can disable Hot Corners on your Mac. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to do so. Let me show you how to turn off Hot Corners on a Mac.

Method 1: Disable Hot Corners from System Settings

If you wish to turn off Hot Corners on your Mac, the first way to do so is to assign a “No action” function to each corner you want to disable. This will ensure that your Mac doesn’t trigger any screen action when you move the pointer into any of the corners. Here’s how to do it.

If you are hands-on with command lines, you can also permanently disable Hot Corners on Mac using the Terminal. Each Hot Corner can be disabled with a specific command. We’ve mentioned everything below:

You can also choose to disable two of the Hot Corners while keeping the other two active. Or, you can disable all of them at once. All of this is up to you.

If I’m using Hot Corners on a Mac, I make sure to set up the bottom-left and bottom-right while disabling the top two ones. Since I often access the top Menu bar and Notification Center on my Mac, there are chances that I might accidentally trigger the top two Hot Corners, when I don’t even need to perform an action.

Rather than deactivating Hot Corners on your Mac altogether, you can also go for an alternative that makes sure you don’t activate them unintentionally. All you have to do is assign a Modifier key to every action when youset up Hot Corners on your Mac.When you do this, the Hot Corner won’t be activated unless you press certain keys on your Mac keyboard. Certainly, this will prevent those accidental triggers. Here’s how to do this:

Once you’ve done this, that particular Hot Corner won’t be triggered until the two conditions are met. Let’s assume you’ve assigned a Lock Screen action with a Command key to the Top-Left corner. In this case, the Lock Screen won’t trigger until you move theMac pointerto the top-left corner while holding the Command key. This will surely lower the chances of unwanted triggers.

That’s how easy it is to turn off Hot Corners on a Mac. You can choose to disable this feature completely or tweak a few settings to avoid accidental triggers. Well, it all depends on you and your preferences.

The Hot Corner settings are hidden deep inside the System Settings on the Mac. To access these, open System Settings -> Desktop & Dock -> Hot Corners.