How to Turn On the Mac’s Scroll Bars

Updated October 9th, 2020.

First thing I do when setting up a new Mac is turn on the scroll bars. I shouldn’t have to turn them on, because they should be on by default… but starting in Mac OS X 10.9, Apple turned them off!

I think Apple was thinking “The iPhone doesn’t have scroll bars, and the iPad doesn’t have scroll bars, and everyone loves the iPhone and iPad. Maybe we should take them away from the Mac too.”

Apple got this one wrong. The Mac should have scroll bars.

Default “scroll bars turned off” situation

See below for a representative picture showing the minimal “no scroll bars” look (this is the “Notes” app but the problem is present in nearly every Mac app):

Can you tell whether there are notes below (or above) the ten that are shown? No, you can’t. You’d have to first TRY scrolling and if there was something below (or above), the scrolling would actually do something (that is, it would reveal more notes, below or above the ones displayed in the window).

If there weren’t more notes to show, you would have wasted a scroll move– sort of like going to the trouble of putting your key in the lock to unlock a door and when you turn the key you realize the door was unlocked already. You feel silly, and you’ve wasted your time.

Using Apple’s default settings (“When scrolling”) the scroll bars will appear as soon as you start scrolling (unless there’s nothing to scroll) but that’s not very helpful. The fact that you have to TRY to scroll in order to see whether you NEED to scroll will inevitably result– at times– in wasted time and effort. That would be an irritation, and it’s all because you can’t tell whether you need to scroll or not without first trying to do it.

Big improvement with scroll bars turned on

Now look at the picture below, with the scroll bar showing.

You can see instantly that there must be more notes above the ones that are shown (because the scroll bar– bracketed in red here– is not all the way to the top), and there also must be more notes below the ones that are shown (because it’s also not all the way to the bottom).

You can also tell how many notes are not shown in this window, roughly, by noting that the scroll bar is roughly one-third as long as the window is tall, which means you’re seeing about a third of what there is to see. (If you resized the window– made it taller– more notes would show, and the scroll bar would continue to get longer, until finally every note showed, and with no need for a scroll bar at that point, the scroll bar would simply disappear.)

This is the way scroll bars are meant to work– that is, they shouldn’t require you to move the mouse or trackpad in order to see them. It’s how they used to work before Apple got carried away with simplifying thing.

Here’s how you make things right.

How to change settings in System Preferences to show scroll bars ALWAYS

Turning on the scroll bars is easy. All you do is go to the Apple menu, then System Preferences, then General. Set “Show scroll bars” to “Always.” There, better! See below.

You can always change things back but I’m betting you won’t. Try it my way and see for yourself. (It’s especially handy in Safari, as you’ll know whether you’re reading a short page or a long one, simply by looking at the vertical scroll bar.)

This one simple setting will save you time, many times a day. It will also save you the irritation of going to the trouble of positioning the cursor so you can scroll, only to find out there was no reason to do so. Add it up over a year and you’ll be a less irritated person, with a couple of extra hours to spend on something fun.

Note: this one change affects all windows with scroll bars. It’s not something you have to change on an app by app basis. Super-easy, and super-powerful.

First in a series of short blog posts explaining how I use my Mac– shortcuts, techniques, settings, etc. Each post is self-contained but I suggest you read them all.
Also in this series:
How to Make “Recent Items” More Useful

Tell a friend and help my blog get famous. If a piano-playing kitten can go viral so can a blog that helps you get stuff done.

Did this article help you?

Maybe you'd like to contribute to the
Christian Boyce coffee fund.

---

Want some some quick iPhone how-tos?
Visit me at iPhoneinaminute.com.

Looking for quick tips about Macs?
See my One-Minute Macman website!