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I want to give the new scrolling behavior in Lion a try (both on the built-in as well as on the magic trackpad).

But on my Mouse (a Logitech Anywhere MX), I don't want reverse scrolling. In preferences, it seems as if there were two different settings (one in the mouse prefPane, the other in the trackpad prefPane), however changing one always changes the other.

Is it possible to set this behavior independently?

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  • 1
    I hope that someone like Logitech will come up with a mouse with switchable scroll wheel direction - even underneath the mouse, I would use it only once and then forget about it!!!
    – Walter Tross
    Commented Jun 26, 2015 at 12:52

7 Answers 7

Reset to default
14

No

Currently in Lion the preference for reverse scrolling sets the direction for both mice and trackpads.

If you want to switch directions quickly you might look into Scrollreverser which puts the option in the menubar.

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  • After installing this app it completely disabled my scroller on my logitech mx master and I can't get it to work again, beware!
    – Logan Yang
    Commented Apr 17, 2019 at 15:32
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Scrollreverser (free app) actually supports configuring the scrolling direction for each kind of device separately.

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  • Free but closed-source.
    – moala
    Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 10:02
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    github.com/pilotmoon/Scroll-Reverser
    – Chinasaur
    Commented Feb 10, 2014 at 6:36
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    Scrollreverser is awesome.
    – Weibo Li
    Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 6:49
  • When I use Scroll Reverser to only reverse external mice it makes trackpad scrolling go both ways, arbitrarily. While scrolling down, at certain speeds it starts scrolling up... 👎
    – Andreas
    Commented Jun 29, 2022 at 11:32
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Posting this as a separate answer based on a recommendation.

As of version 1.9.3 BetterTouchTool now supports inversing the scroll direction only for normal mice. It works with Sierra. BetterTouchTool is not free but it is very reasonably priced.

I have noticed the scroll sensitivity is not what I expect when I use BetterTouchTool to reverse mouse scroll direction, so I personally prefer SteerMouse (mentioned in my other answer to this question). To be more specific, for some reason with Better Touch Tool mouse scrolling I have to scroll more than a few "clicks" for it to recognize that I have started scrolling, which means I can't easily scroll a small amount.

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Adding one more answer for a newer product I just came across, namely Mos (source code here). I have not used this one personally, but I have seen it mentioned. It is free.

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    Can confirm, Mos works with Mojave, MBP 2014. <3
    – NateJ
    Commented Apr 10, 2019 at 16:40
  • omg i just installed this on Ventura and FINALLY my mouse/trackpad situation makes sense!
    – therightstuff
    Commented Jul 11, 2023 at 6:49
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Another (paid) option is SteerMouse. Years ago I bought SteerMouse and haven't had any problems with it. It has worked perfectly for me on Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, and now Sierra.

Sierra Update: Version 5 of SteerMouse is needed for Sierra support, but it is working fine. (From what I have read here, ScrollReverser is having some issues with Sierra.)

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  • It has too many preferences to set up – for my tastes.
    – Walter Tross
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 18:55
  • Yes, SteerMouse has a lot of preferences, but I only set two settings - scroll direction for mouse wheel up, and scroll direction for mouse wheel down. That's all that is needed.
    – Nate
    Commented Nov 6, 2016 at 22:39
  • In my opinion, your revision about Better Touch Tool should be a seperate answer to this question.
    – bb216b3acfd8f72cbc8f899d4d6963
    Commented Nov 6, 2016 at 22:48
  • @Peanut moved it to a separate answer
    – Nate
    Commented Nov 7, 2016 at 20:34
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I found this thread when looking for help on getting the wonderful Scroll Reverser running on Catalina. The author has a note on the website saying that Catalina is causing issues and there is not yet a fix available. For me, the app would launch and immediately segfault. The icon for the app would appear for a split second on the menu bar and then disappear.

I experimented a bit and found a workaround which works for me and might work well for others too.

It involves using the automator tool on MacOS to create an "application" which launches Scroll Reverser. Just one action required which is "Run Applescript". Below is the body of the action.

do shell script ¬
    "'/Applications/Scroll Reverser.app/Contents/MacOS/Scroll Reverser' \\
        >/dev/null 2>&1 &"

So create this automator application, save it into your applications folder with a new name eg. Scroll Reverser Catalina and run it.

On first launch, it will require the user to allow for security & private exceptions in the areas of "accessibility" and "input monitoring". After ticking the boxes for Scroll Reverser Catalina in those security & privacy areas, it runs as expected.

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I recommend using USB Overdrive which is compatible with the latest MacOS Catalina. Reverse the scroll direction by selecting "down" on "scroll up" and vice versa for "up". If you want this setting only for specific mice this is also possible in USB Overdrive.

Further you can disable or customize the default MacOS mouse acceleration with USB Overdrive, which I strongly recommend.

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  • USB Overdrive is not compatible with the version of the OS in the original post. This doesn't really seem to fit the request
    – dstarh
    Commented May 8, 2020 at 21:10
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    You are right. Though I think almost everybody reading this is not running Lion anymore and is looking for a solution for this issue with a newer version of MacOS.
    – iOSapps.de
    Commented May 9, 2020 at 8:41
  • I used this in Mojave with a fairly common Logitech MX518, and it did the job there. After installing Monterey, USB Overdrive completely stopped recognizing the mouse at all, and the support email address seems to be inactive for at least the last four years (haven't received a response).
    – Andreas
    Commented Jun 29, 2022 at 11:38

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