How to change your mouse cursor on Windows 11 and 10

Windows gives you three ways to change the mouse cursor: the color and size settings, the classic Pointers tab where you can load .cur and .ani files one by one, and apps that install a whole cursor set at once. Here’s how each works.

Option 1: Change the cursor color and size in Settings

1. Open Settings (Windows key + I).
2. On Windows 11, go to Accessibility → Mouse pointer and touch. On Windows 10, go to Ease of Access → Cursor & pointer (on some versions it’s Mouse pointer).
3. Under Mouse pointer style, choose white, black, inverted or a custom color.
4. Drag the Size slider to make the pointer bigger.

This changes the color and size of the standard Windows cursors. It doesn’t change their shape.

Option 2: Load .cur and .ani files in Mouse Properties

Windows still has the classic Pointers tab, where you can pick a built-in scheme or replace each cursor with your own file. Static cursors are .cur files; animated ones are .ani.

1. On Windows 11, open Settings → Bluetooth & devices → Mouse → Additional mouse settings. On Windows 10, open Settings → Devices → Mouse → Additional mouse options. (Or press Windows key + R, type main.cpl and press Enter.)
2. Switch to the Pointers tab.
3. Pick a scheme from the Scheme list, or select a cursor in the list (for example Normal Select) and click Browse… to choose a .cur or .ani file.
4. Repeat for each cursor you want to change — Windows has 17 of them.
5. Click Save As… to keep your choices as a scheme, then Apply.

Many cursor packs come with an Install.inf file. Right-click it and choose Install (on Windows 11, choose Show more options first), then select the new scheme in the Pointers tab.

A word of caution: .ani files are parsed by Windows itself, and the animated-cursor parser has had serious security flaws in the past. Only use cursor files from sources you trust.

Option 3: Apply a whole cursor skin in one click

Setting 17 cursors by hand gets old fast. CursorSkins installs a complete set at once and lets you switch between sets — or back to the default — in one click.

1. Wishlist CursorSkins on Steam — it launches in November 2026. Once it’s out, install it from your Steam library.
2. In the Workshop tab, subscribe to a skin such as Little Capybara or Pixel Goose.
3. Preview it in the fitting room, then click Apply. All 17 Windows cursors change, including the busy and working-in-background animations.
4. Pick a cursor size if you want it bigger, and use Restore default to go back to the standard Windows cursors.

Skins from Steam Workshop are treated as untrusted: CursorSkins reads only the images and settings in a skin and builds the cursor files itself, rather than handing downloaded files straight to Windows.

FAQ

Why didn’t my cursor change in a game?

Many games draw their own cursor and ignore the system one. That’s true for cursor schemes set in Windows too, not just for CursorSkins.

What are all 17 Windows cursors?

Normal select, help select, working in background, busy, precision select, text select, handwriting, unavailable, the four resize cursors, move, alternate select, link select, location select and person select. Cursor states explained shows each one.