What is Pawvis?
Pawvis is a free, open-source macOS utility that turns your Mac's built-in webcam into a fully hand-tracked mouse. No extra hardware, no wearables, no depth sensors — just raise your hand and the cursor follows your palm. A finger dip clicks, two fingers folded scroll, and a library of gestures can be mapped to shortcuts, app launches, or any command. Everything runs 100% on-device, so no frame ever leaves your Mac.
Who it's for
- Hands-free productivity seekers — people who want to navigate macOS without touching a mouse or trackpad, using natural hand movements instead.
- Users with repetitive strain or mobility constraints — those who struggle with crisp clicks or sustained mouse use benefit from dwell-clicking, adjustable tracking, and gesture-based control.
- Power users and automation tinkerers — anyone who wants to bind custom gestures to window management, app switching, or arbitrary shell commands, with optional voice control and AI computer-use integration.
Key features
Gesture-driven cursor and clicks
Pawvis tracks 21 hand joints many times a second using Apple's Vision framework. The cursor only follows when you show an open hand — a resting or typing hand never drags it around. Dip your index finger for a clean click, your pinky for right-drag, and a third finger for middle-click. Dwell-clicking is built in for hands that can't manage a crisp dip.
Scroll and drag with natural poses
Fold your middle and ring fingers in, keep index and pinky up, and move your hand up or down to scroll — horizontal scrolling is optional. Keep a finger down and move to drag; a short window protects quick clicks from becoming accidental drags. Chained clicks land where the first one did when you tap twice in the same spot.
Train your own gestures
Beyond the built-in set — wiggling fingers, fist with thumb up, shaka, or flinging fingertips at screen edges — you can record a motion of your own and Pawvis learns to match it. Every gesture lives in Settings → Gestures, off until you assign an action: switch desktops, move windows, press any shortcut, open any app, or run any command. Per-app actions let one gesture mean different things in different apps.
On-device privacy and optional extras
Everything runs locally — no cloud, no uploads. Optional voice control enables hands-free commands, and you can pass computer-use tasks to Codex or Claude Code. The menu bar icon opens a live status panel and a Gesture Guide that walks through every move, including your custom ones.
What stands out
Pawvis gives you a full mouse experience from a webcam you already own — no hardware, no cost, no compromise.
Most hand-tracking tools require dedicated sensors or expensive peripherals. Pawvis achieves precise, low-latency control with just your Mac's camera, and it's completely free and open source. The combination of trainable gestures, per-app actions, and dwell-clicking makes it genuinely adaptable — not a gimmick, but a practical input layer for daily macOS use.
Worth checking out if…
You spend long hours at a Mac and want to reduce mouse dependency, you're curious about gesture-driven control but don't want to buy hardware, or you enjoy customizing your workflow with open-source tools. It's also a strong fit for accessibility-minded users who need alternatives to precise physical clicking.
