Cellular immunity demands that individual effector leukocytes execute their protective functions in peripheral tissues of the body, which could exhibit a wide range of biochemical and biophysical characteristics. We hypothesized that this is accomplished in part by various efferent, cell-type-specific immune-mechanical patterns of activity. To mechanically profile immune contacts, we developed a novel experimental system by which cells interacting with biomimetic hydrogel spheres (microparticles) are imaged with high resolution. Information on the relative strength and mechanical patterning of immune cells are then derived from analyses of the topographies they induce on the microparticle surfaces. We first compared macrophages and cytotoxic T cells (CTLs), and found that phagocytosis and synapsis are mechanical opposites: macrophages wrap around targets while T-cells indent or embed into them. To further clarify what pattern of mechanical activity characterizes cytolytic immune function, we profiled ex vivo isolated naïve, effector, memory, and exhausted CD8+ CTLs from mice. We found that CTLs at the peak of infection are associated with greater mechanical strength, more numerous protrusive activities, and more complex indentations than the antigen-inexperienced (naïve) or post-lytic stages (memory, exhausted). Interestingly, exhausted cells were closer to naïve cells in terms of strength, while maintaining an intermediate degree of pattern complexity. Finally, different classes of effector T-cell synapses were compared: CD8+ CTLs, CD4+ CTLs, and non-cytolytic CD4+ conventional helper cells. CD8+ cells were the strongest, while pattern complexity did not appear to distinguish the lytic cells from non-lytic cells. Together, our data imply that immune lineages develop their own idiosyncratic mechanotypes, which could contribute to overall immune protection in a complex biochemical-biomechanical landscape.