How to check your mouse DPI
Your mouse's DPI is set inside the mouse, so the only places that can show it are the manufacturer's own software, the DPI button and its indicator light, or the spec sheet. Windows and macOS do not show it anywhere: the sliders they offer are pointer speed, which is a different thing. And all of those sources tell you the setting. If you want the number the sensor actually delivers, you have to measure it.
Where each brand shows the DPI setting
Every vendor puts the number somewhere slightly different, and most of the guides that rank for this question stop at "open the software". These are the actual locations, from each vendor's own documentation.
| Brand | Where the number is |
|---|---|
| Logitech G (gaming) | G HUB: select the mouse, then the Sensitivity (DPI) tab. Up to five DPI speeds plus a DPI Shift speed, stored per profile. |
| Logitech (office) | Logi Options+: the Pointer speed slider under the mouse. The older Logitech Options labelled the same slider in DPI, 400 to 1,600 in steps of 200. |
| Razer | Synapse: select the mouse, then the Performance tab and Sensitivity Stages, up to five, typed or dragged. With Synapse installed, cycling the DPI button shows the stage on screen. Current models ship at 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200 and 6,400, lit red, green, blue, cyan and yellow, with 1,600 (blue) as the default. |
| SteelSeries | GG (formerly Engine): the mouse's CPI settings, the vendor's word for the same figure. The Prime Wireless, for example, ships at 400, 800, 1,200, 2,400 and 3,200, lit purple, blue, green, yellow and red. |
| Corsair | iCUE: hover the mouse on the home screen, click DPI, then DPI Presets and DPI Stages. X and Y can be set separately; the indicator colour per stage is yours to choose. |
| Glorious | CORE: the Performance tab. Stock stages are 400 yellow, 800 blue, 1,600 red (default) and 3,200 green, cycled by the button behind the scroll wheel. |
| Zowie | No software. The DPI button is on the underside and cycles 400, 800, 1,600 and 3,200 (some models add stages between). The LED above the button shows the stage; 1,600 is blue, and the manual for your model lists the rest. |
| Any mouse with a DPI button and no software | Press it and watch the light. The box or manual maps each colour or blink pattern to a figure, and that mapping is the only readout there is. |
| Office and bundled mice | One fixed DPI, no button, no software. The product page or spec sheet is the only source. Most sit between 1,000 and 1,600. |
Two things the table is quietly saying. The vendors do not agree on a name (SteelSeries and most sensor makers call it CPI, counts per inch, which is the more accurate term). And for the biggest single group of mice, the ones that came with a computer or cost very little, there is no way to check at all except to look it up or measure it.
What Windows and macOS actually show
Open Windows Settings, then Bluetooth & devices, then Mouse. You get a Mouse pointer speed slider and an Enhance pointer precision toggle. The word DPI does not appear. The classic Mouse Properties dialog under Pointer Options is the same slider. On a Mac, System Settings, then Mouse, gives you Tracking speed, and Pointer acceleration under Advanced. Again, no DPI.
That is not an omission. DPI is how many movement counts the sensor sends per inch of travel. Pointer speed multiplies those counts after they arrive, so the operating system never needs to know the sensor's figure and cannot report it. On Windows, the slider's sixth position of eleven, with Enhance pointer precision switched off, is the one setting that passes counts through 1:1. Every other position scales them, and the enhancement adds a curve that depends on how fast you move. macOS has no 1:1 position at all.
So a guide that tells you to "check your DPI in Windows mouse settings" is showing you pointer speed. The Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center does show a sensitivity figure, but only for Microsoft's own mice.
The setting is not the same as the delivered figure
Everything above gives you the number the mouse was told. The number of counts it actually sends per inch is usually close to that, but not exactly: sensors vary a few percent between units, firmware rounds, and the figure on the box is the sensor's nominal value. For a gaming mouse the gap is normally small. For an unbranded mouse it can be large, because there is no reason the spec sheet was ever checked against the sensor.
The difference matters if you are matching sensitivity across two mice, or across two computers, or feeding a figure into an eDPI calculation. A setting of 800 that delivers 830 is a 4% error in every number downstream of it.
Measuring it, and what error to expect
The honest method needs no software and no ruler. Take an object of exactly known size, put the mouse against one end, drag it to the other end, and divide the counts the mouse reported by the distance. A bank card is 85.60 mm along its long edge by international standard, and A4 and US Letter paper are exact sizes too, which is why the DPI test on this site uses those three as references and reads the counts directly from the mouse.
The popular alternative, drawing a one-inch line in a paint program and counting pixels, has three problems. The cursor's movement passes through pointer speed and acceleration, so the count is only right at 6/11 with enhancement off, and never right on a Mac. The cursor stops at the edge of the screen while your hand keeps moving. And one inch is far too short: a two millimetre slip at the start or end, which is normal for a hand, is already an 8% error over 25.4 mm. The same slip is under 5% across a bank card and under 1.5% across a sheet of A4, which is why longer references win.
Whatever you measure with, repeat it. On this site's bench, repeated runs on a known reference stayed within 5% of each other, and the per-reference accuracy bands are published on the test page rather than promised. Take three or more passes, use the middle value, round it to the nearest step of 50, and compare it with the setting in the software. Within a few percent, the setting is real and the sensor is doing what it says. Far off, and the most common reason is that pointer scaling was in the path, or that a different DPI stage was active than you thought.
Common questions
How do I check mouse DPI on Windows 11?
There is no readout in Windows 11 or any other version. Use the manufacturer's software from the table above, the DPI button's indicator light, or measure it against a bank card. The settings page shows pointer speed, which is not DPI.
How do I check mouse DPI without software?
Cycle the DPI button and read the light against the manual's colour table, look the model up on the maker's site, or measure it. Measuring is the only one of the three that tells you what the sensor delivers rather than what it was set to.
How do I check mouse DPI on a Mac?
Exactly as on Windows: the Mac versions of G HUB, Synapse, GG and iCUE show the setting, and Tracking speed in System Settings is not DPI. Note that macOS never passes counts through 1:1, so the paint-program method cannot work there at all; a direct-count measurement can.
What is the default DPI of a mouse?
There is no universal default. Gaming mice in the table above ship with either 800 or 1,600 selected, and office mice are fixed somewhere between 1,000 and 1,600. If the mouse has a DPI button and you have never touched it, you are on whichever stage the maker chose, and the light tells you which.