A disappearing mouse cursor is making Microsoft's classic Outlook desktop app nearly unusable for some Windows users, forcing the company to investigate a bug that has persisted for nearly two months. The issue causes the mouse pointer and sometimes text cursor to vanish when hovering over certain parts of the Outlook interface, though emails in the message list still change color as if being selected. According to Microsoft's support documentation, the problem also appears in OneNote and other Microsoft 365 applications, though less frequently than in Outlook.
Users first began reporting the glitch online in late 2024, with complaints describing how the invisible cursor prevents basic email management tasks.
"My mouse just stopped being visible while I am using Outlook, and this is very, very frustrating because my permission wasn't given to make these changes,"
one customer wrote on Microsoft's Q&A forum.
"Now I can't find anything, can't open emails, can't copy and paste."
Microsoft officially marked the issue as "Investigating" on February 19, 2026, according to its support page. The company has asked enterprise customers to have their Microsoft 365 administrators open support cases and submit diagnostic logs including WebView2 WPR traces for analysis.
While engineers work on a permanent fix, Microsoft has provided three temporary workarounds that users describe as awkward at best. Clicking an email when its row highlights may restore the pointer. Switching to PowerPoint, clicking inside an editable area, then returning to Outlook has worked for some affected users. Restarting the computer provides another temporary solution.
The timing coincides with Microsoft's ongoing push to migrate users from classic Outlook to its redesigned web-based application. Earlier this week, the company announced it would extend the opt-out period for enterprise customers by twelve months, moving the mandatory transition date from April 2026 to March 2027. This marks the second year-long delay for businesses resisting the switch to new Outlook.
Microsoft has not provided a timeline for when a permanent fix will be available for the disappearing cursor bug. The company's support documentation states only that "the Outlook Team is investigating this issue" and will provide updates when more information becomes available.
