Magic Mouse 2 scroll lag/jumps in macOS VM (Terminal/TextEdit/System Settings/Chrome)

Discussion in 'Parallels Desktop on a Mac with Apple silicon' started by JackZ3, Jan 11, 2026 at 3:55 AM.

  1. JackZ3

    JackZ3 Bit poster

    Messages:
    2
    Hi everyone,

    I'm seeing consistent scroll lag/jumping with an Apple Magic Mouse 2, but only inside a macOS VM in Parallels Desktop. Scrolling on the host macOS is normal.

    Environment
    Host machine: Mac Studio (M2)
    Host OS: macOS Sequoia 15.7.3
    Mouse: Apple Magic Mouse 2 (Lightning)
    Parallels Desktop: 26.2.0 (57363)
    VM display mode: Full Screen

    Guest / VM
    Tested with two macOS VMs:

    • macOS Sequoia 15.7.3 (VM)

    • macOS Tahoe 26.2 (VM)
    Parallels Tools is installed and updated to the latest version in both VMs.

    Issue
    Inside the macOS VM, scrolling with the Magic Mouse is laggy and "jumpy" in several apps:

    • Laggy/jumpy: Terminal, TextEdit, System Settings, Chrome

    • Seems normal: Safari
    Behavior: with small/slow scroll gestures, the content often doesn't move (or moves only slightly). If I keep scrolling faster, it suddenly "catches up" with large jumps. Scrolling fast improves the behavior; slow/small scrolling is the worst.

    This is 100% reproducible.

    Steps to reproduce
    1. Start the macOS VM (Sequoia 15.7.3 or Tahoe 26.2).

    2. Open Terminal and output enough text to allow scrolling (e.g., ~100+ lines).

    3. Use small/slow scroll gestures on the Magic Mouse.

    4. Observe little/no movement, then sudden large jumps when scrolling faster.
    What I've tried
    • Changed Scrolling speed in the guest macOS settings (both higher and lower) → no change.

    • No third-party mouse/scrolling utilities installed on host or guest.
    Parallels settings notes
    • I could not find any macOS-VM-specific mouse configuration options (unlike Windows VMs, which show options like mouse optimization).

    • The closest related option I found is in Parallels Desktop Preferences → Shortcuts → macOS System Shortcuts, where "Send macOS system shortcuts" is set to Auto. (This appears to be keyboard/gesture shortcut routing, but I'm mentioning it for completeness.)
    Has anyone seen this with Magic Mouse + macOS guests, or knows a recommended workaround/setting to try?

    Thanks!
     

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