How to Unlock the Touchpad on an HP Laptop

Double-tap the top-left corner of the touchpad, use Settings or Device Manager to enable it

This article explains how to unlock and lock your HP laptop's touchpad. How it works depends on your specific laptop and whether you have the latest drivers installed, so you may need to try multiple methods.

Jon Martindale

If you have an HP laptop with a Synaptics Touchpad, you may be able to unlock the touchpad with a quick press. Just double-tap in the top-left corner of the touchpad. You may see a little light in that same corner turn off. If you don't see the light, your touchpad should now be working — the light displays when it's locked. You can also disable the touchpad again in the future by performing the same action.

Some Synaptics Touchpads also respond to a long, five-second press in the top-left corner. Try that instead if double-tap doesn't work.

If you have a Synaptics Touchpad, but it's not responding to physical taps as described above, check for driver updates.

Some older HP laptops include a dedicated switch next to the touchpad to toggle it on and off. You'll spot it through its indicator light. If the small LED displays either yellow, orange, or blue, then the touchpad is locked. Double-tap the sensor to re-enable the touchpad.

As with Synaptics Touchpads, this should turn the touchpad back on. You can lock it again using the same method, at which point the light should turn on.

If your touchpad still doesn't work, another way to enable it is through Windows itself. There's an option in Settings to turn on touchpad functionality, and Device Manager is responsible for disabling the touchpad. Here's how to check those settings:

The built-in Settings app has a simple toggle you need to enable to unlock the touchpad.

Open Settings (WIN+i) and select Bluetooth & devices (Windows 11) or just Devices (Windows 10).

Choose Touchpad.

Toggle Touchpad on.

Device Manager houses all the controls for hardware, including the touchpad. Check its settings to confirm that it's enabled.

Open Device Manager. One way is to search for Device Manager from the taskbar's search bar.

Expand the Mice and other pointing devices section.

Double-click or double-tap your touchpad. The one in our example is called Synaptics HID TouchPad.

Select the Driver tab.

Select Enable Device to enable the touchpad, or Disable Device to disable it.

HP laptops have long offered various options for turning off a touchpad should you not want it to get in the way of your typing, gameplay, or various other activities—especially when using an external mouse.

That also means it's possible to lock mouse functionality by accident. If that happens, the directions above provide easy ways to unlock a laptop with a touchpad.

However, there are other things you can try if your touchpad still doesn't work.

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