Create a Fake Movable Cursor in Python with Pynput

8/11/2025

How to Create & Program a Fake Movable Cursor in Python with Pynput

Hey everyone, hope you're having a good one. Today, we're diving into a pretty cool & somewhat niche topic: creating a fake movable cursor in Python. You might be wondering, "Why on earth would I want to do that?" & honestly, it's a valid question. The applications range from building custom UI/UX testing environments & creating unique user experiences in applications, to developing assistive technologies or even just for some creative coding projects.

Here's the thing, we're not just talking about moving the system's default cursor around. We're talking about creating a separate, visually distinct cursor that we can control programmatically, while the real cursor does its thing in the background, or is even hidden entirely. It's a bit of a creative workaround, but the results are pretty awesome.

We'll be using a couple of key Python libraries to pull this off:

pynput

for capturing mouse & keyboard events, &

tkinter

for creating the graphical element of our fake cursor. So, grab a coffee, fire up your favorite code editor, & let's get into it.

The Core Idea: How It All Works

So, how do we actually create a "fake" cursor? It's not as straightforward as a single library call, but it's a clever combination of a few different concepts. Here's the lowdown:

The Illusion of a Cursor: We'll start by creating a transparent, borderless window using
1tkinter
. This window will act as an overlay on our screen. On this transparent canvas, we'll display a custom image that will serve as our fake cursor. This could be anything you want – a classic arrow, a dot, a picture of a cat – you name it.
Hiding the Real Deal: To make our fake cursor the star of the show, we'll need to hide the real system cursor.
1tkinter
has some built-in functionality to help us with this, making the original cursor disappear when it's over our transparent window.
The Brains of the Operation (
1pynput
): This is where
1pynput
comes in. It's a powerful library that can monitor & control input devices like your mouse & keyboard. We'll use
1pynput
to listen for mouse movements & clicks from the real mouse, even when it's invisible.
Putting It All Together: The data we get from
1pynput
(like the x & y coordinates of the hidden mouse) will be used to update the position of our fake cursor image on the
1tkinter
window. So, when you move your physical mouse,
1pynput
captures that movement & we use it to move our fake cursor image in real-time. It's a bit like puppeteering, & the end result is a pretty convincing fake cursor.

Getting Your Environment Ready

Before we start coding, you'll need to make sure you have the necessary libraries installed.

tkinter

usually comes bundled with Python, so you probably don't need to worry about that one.

pynput

, however, you'll likely need to install.

You can do this easily with pip: