Set up or turn off Hot Corners on your Mac

Why it happens

Hot Corners run an action when you push the pointer into a corner of the screen, like showing the desktop or locking the Mac. They're handy once you know about them and confusing when you don't. On macOS Tahoe the bottom-right corner can start a Quick Note by default, which surprises a lot of people.

How to fix it

1. Click the Apple menu, choose System Settings and click Desktop & Dock in the sidebar.

2. Scroll down to Mission Control and click Hot Corners… to open a small window with four pop-up menus, one for each corner of the screen.

   Desktop & Dock›Mission Control›Hot Corners…

3. Click the menu for a corner and choose what it should do. Useful picks are Desktop, Mission Control, Lock Screen and Put Display to Sleep.

4. To stop a corner doing anything, choose the dash (-) in its menu. Do this for the bottom-right corner if Quick Note keeps popping up.

5. Click Done, then push the pointer into a corner to try it.

Still not fixed?

1. Setting off corners by accident? Hold Command, Option, Control or Shift while you choose an action. The corner then only works while you hold that key.

2. If Quick Note still appears, you may be pressing its shortcut, Fn-Q. That's the way to open a note on purpose, too.

3. If a corner does nothing, check you chose an action and clicked Done. Then push the pointer fully into the corner, right to the edge of the screen.

4. If corners stop responding or the settings won't stay after a restart, install the latest macOS update.

   General›Software Update

5. Still not behaving after an update? Contact Apple Support so they can check your user account settings with you.