# Terminal mouse ownership

When a running terminal application turns on mouse reporting, Solo shows a control in the top-right corner of the terminal. Use it to decide whether pointer gestures control the application or stay in Solo for text selection and terminal navigation.

## Choosing who controls the mouse

The control has two states:

| State | What happens |
|-------|--------------|
| **TUI controls mouse** | The default. Clicks, right-clicks, pointer movement, and wheel gestures are sent to the terminal application using its requested mouse protocol. |
| **Text selection on** | Solo keeps new pointer and wheel gestures local. You can select terminal text, use the [right-click menu](./context-menu.md), activate links with Solo's normal link rules, and scroll main-buffer history without sending mouse reports to the application. |

Click the control to switch states. The control appears only while the current application is requesting mouse input. For an agent, it shares the terminal context tray with [agent context pins](./context-pins.md); for other process types, it appears by itself. Hover over the tray or move keyboard focus into it to reveal the current label when space allows.

Changing mouse ownership doesn't change terminal keyboard focus or keyboard input. You can keep typing into the running process in either state.

## Links while the TUI controls the mouse

Solo keeps intentional modified link clicks local even in **TUI controls mouse** mode:

- On macOS, use `Cmd+click` or `Option+click`.
- On Windows and Linux, use `Alt+click`.

An unmodified click still goes to the terminal application. With **Text selection on**, link activation follows the normal rules used when mouse reporting is off: an OSC 8 hyperlink opens with an ordinary click, while detected plain URLs still require the platform modifier above. See [OSC hyperlinks](./osc-kitty-protocol.md#osc-hyperlinks) for supported link types and file-link behavior.

## How long the choice lasts

Mouse ownership is stored for the current process run. You can switch to another process and come back without losing the choice, but stopping or restarting the process starts the next run in **TUI controls mouse** mode.

If the application stops requesting mouse reporting, the control disappears and normal local terminal interactions return. When a process exits without resetting its terminal modes, Solo clears the stale mouse state so its stopped output remains selectable.

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Are you a human? Read this doc on the web: https://soloterm.com/docs/terminal/mouse-ownership