Mouse highlighting is nothing new.
Tools for making the cursor easier to see or annotating an area of the screen have been around for years. I had already been using some of them myself, including Simple Mouse Locator and ScreenBrush.
They are useful tools. But after doing a lot of software demos and screen sharing, I kept wanting a slightly different combination:
- Tuned specifically for remote demos
- Intuitive enough that using it wouldn’t interrupt the demo itself
That is why I built Pointer Cue.
The friction wasn’t drawing — it was switching modes
A pointer highlight works well when I simply want to say:
“Look here.”
But during software demos, I often need to indicate something larger: a group of settings, a toolbar, a chart, or an entire panel.
Full annotation tools already handle this very well. The friction for me was the workflow.
To highlight an area, I would enter drawing mode, mark the area, explain it, exit drawing mode, and then continue operating the application.
None of those steps are difficult. But during a live demo, even one extra mode switch can break the rhythm.
What I wanted was much simpler:
When I want to indicate an area, I want to do it immediately — and then keep going.
So Pointer Cue lets me highlight an area without treating it as a separate annotation workflow.
It is a small difference, but it changes how the tool feels during an actual demo. I can focus on what I am explaining rather than thinking about which mode the presentation tool is currently in.
Tuned for what remote viewers actually see
The other thing I wanted to change was the pointer highlight itself.
Many mouse-highlighting tools feel fast and responsive when viewed directly on your own display.
But during a remote meeting, the audience is seeing a shared-screen video affected by compression, frame rate, network conditions, and often a much smaller viewing area.
I found that an effect that looked obvious on my own screen could be surprisingly easy for someone on the other side of the meeting to miss.
So I deliberately tuned Pointer Cue’s highlight to move a little more slowly. It slightly follows the pointer instead of behaving like an instantaneous effect.
That was intentional.
I wasn’t optimizing for the fastest-looking animation on my own Mac. I was optimizing for a different question:
Can the person watching my shared screen actually notice where I want them to look?
That is the main reason I think of Pointer Cue not simply as a mouse highlighter, but as a visual aid tuned for remote software demos.
The latest step: Active Window Highlight
More recently, I noticed another issue.
Even when the cursor is easy to see, a demo can involve several windows at once. I might move from a browser to a desktop application, compare two windows, and then return to the first one.
As the presenter, that context is obvious. For the audience, it can take a moment to understand:
“Which window should I be looking at now?”
So the latest version of Pointer Cue adds Active Window Highlight.
When I change focus, Pointer Cue visually emphasizes the window I am actually using.
Again, I wanted this to require no extra presentation action. I switch windows because that is already part of the demo. Pointer Cue simply makes that change easier for the audience to follow.
A deliberately narrow tool
Pointer Cue is not intended to replace full annotation or whiteboard tools.
If I need arrows, freehand drawing, text, shapes, or persistent annotations, those tools are a better fit.
Pointer Cue is intentionally narrower.
I wanted a lightweight tool for the moments when I simply need to help an audience follow a software demo: make the pointer easier to see, indicate an area without switching modes, and make the active window obvious.
The common idea behind all of those features is simple:
Visual guidance should follow the demo — the demo shouldn’t have to stop for the visual guidance.
Try it in a real remote demo
Pointer Cue is available for both Mac and Windows.
👉 See Pointer Cue and download it here
For a limited time, I’m also offering a free macOS version directly from the website.
If you regularly give product demos, customer presentations, training sessions, tutorials, or share software in remote meetings, I’d love for you to try it in a real session.
And if you regularly demo software, I’m curious:
What small interaction in a presentation tool most often interrupts the flow of your demo?
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