unclutter

Auto-hide idle mouse cursor on X11

TLDR

Hide cursor after idle

$ unclutter

Custom timeout

$ unclutter -idle [3]

Ignore window

$ unclutter -not [window-name]

Run in background

$ unclutter -b

Don't touch root window

$ unclutter -noevents

SYNOPSIS

unclutter [-idle seconds] [-b] [options]

unclutter automatically hides the mouse cursor on X11 desktops after a configurable period of inactivity. When the user moves the mouse, the cursor immediately reappears, making the hiding completely transparent during normal use.The tool is particularly useful for presentations, kiosk displays, and keyboard-focused workflows where a stationary mouse pointer is a visual distraction. It can run as a background daemon and supports excluding specific windows from cursor hiding, allowing the cursor to remain visible in applications that need it.Two main implementations exist: the original X11 version and unclutter-xfixes, which uses the XFixes extension for a more modern approach. Both serve the same purpose but differ in implementation details and compatibility with compositing window managers.