By the end of this page, you'll know exactly what Ultimate Cursor does for visitors who've asked their OS to reduce motion — and that you don't need to configure anything for it to work correctly.
Applies to Ultimate Cursor 2.3.1+.
Reduced motion is on by default
respectReducedMotion defaults to on even if you never touch the setting — Ultimate Cursor treats accessibility as the safe default, not an opt-in. You can turn it off per configuration under General Settings, but there's rarely a reason to.
What gets skipped
When a visitor's OS has prefers-reduced-motion: reduce set, and respectReducedMotion is on:
- Animated cursor effects (Bubble, Snowflake, Rainbow, particle effects, Character Cursor) don't run at all.
- Static cursor types (Text, Image, Icon, Shape) still display — only the motion, not the cursor itself, is affected.
- Background effects (Antigravity, Light Pillar) behave the same way as animated cursors.
Live OS-preference response
If a visitor changes their OS-level motion preference while your site is open, Ultimate Cursor detects the change immediately and re-initializes — no page reload needed. A Safari-under-14 fallback covers older WebKit versions that don't support the live-change event.
Touch auto-hide as an accessibility affordance
hideCursorOnTouch defaults to on: on touch devices, custom cursors hide automatically, since there's no persistent pointer to track. This is a deliberate accessibility/UX choice, not just a device-detection detail.