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In OS X Lion, is there a way to disable rubber-band scrolling? This is the bounce that occurs when the window is scrolled beyond the top or bottom edge.

I'm aware that non-apple input devices don't rubber-band and hope to find a setting or software to eliminate this on the Apple trackpad and mice.

Follow-up: There's a very good discussion on Apple Support Communities regarding this topic. Apparently defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -bool false disables rubber band scrolling for some applications.

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    really interested in finding an answer to this one, I hate the scroll bounce at the edges of a window.
    – Ty W
    Jul 27, 2011 at 18:16
  • Some Applications, like iTunes, and browsers other than Safari don't do it. That irritates me! Ha ha
    – Paul Eccles
    Aug 4, 2011 at 6:39
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    Is there a technical problem causing this to be an issue or is it so annoying to you that it's actually worth a 50 bounty?
    – Alexander
    Aug 7, 2011 at 23:39
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    It's just so irritating to me. I was hoping a bounty might convince someone to dredge up a hack to turn it off. It's not the end of the world but I find most of Lion's new animations and effects to be distracting and wholly unnecessary. Since I use my machine for work, all the useless animation just wastes time and pulls me out of the zone.
    – Ty W
    Aug 8, 2011 at 16:37
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    @XAleXOwnZX it's so annoying that I'd pay for some third-party app to disable this.
    – Wavy Crab
    Sep 27, 2011 at 2:07

10 Answers 10

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This is not an answer, but a hint in the right direction.

I have a non-multi touch trackpad and I rubber band scrolling is disabled in Lion for me. So this setting is linked to the multi-touch support.

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  • Sadly - this is the best option at present - use a non-apple pointer/trackpad...
    – bmike ♦
    Sep 14, 2011 at 4:09
  • I also have only a non-gesture mouse on one of my Lion-based machines and can confirm rubber band behavior doesn't happening this box. It's a scroll wheel mouse.
    – Ian C.
    Apr 28, 2012 at 21:02
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I found a hidden preference for disabling rubberband scrolling with strings /System/Library/Frameworks/*.framework/Versions/*/* 2> /dev/null | grep -iE '(rubb|elastic)' | grep -v ' ' | sort | uniq:

defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -bool false

It should take effect after reopening applications. It doesn't seem to affect web views like Safari windows though.

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For anyone else trying to figure this out, this may be of help:

Apple uses the word "elasticity" in reference to this part of rubber-band scrolling. Xcode's documentation includes more details.

Also, look into the content of "/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/AppKit".

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Disabling the rubber banding when scrolling past the end of a page can be done. It simply requires you to ditch your Apple pointing device and use any third party mouse, like my 8 year old Logitech mouse. No bouncing rubber band effect when scrolling past the end of any page.

Of course, this means giving up all gestures. If, like me, you hate the rubber band effect enough to trade away all gestures to be rid of it, run out to the dollar store and get that $4.99 USB mouse.

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I have found this CSS snippet that apparently disables it: http://www.smilingsouls.net/Blog/20110804114957.html

Now to figure out how to implement the CSS rule in every web page we visit... probably via a Safari extension, like QuickStyle or NinjaKit.

QuickStyle: http://canisbos.com/quickstyle

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  • Also see: mir.aculo.us/2011/07/29/…
    – Fofer
    Aug 24, 2011 at 12:50
  • this only works for sites that shouldn't be scrolled at all, I believe. Enabling this on every single page would very quickly break your web browsing experience.
    – Ty W
    Nov 18, 2011 at 13:34
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I think the answer is no: you can't disable that feature.

Keep an eye on third party software like MagicPrefs and Secrets. If anyone figures out how to do it, it'll probably be one of those.

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Rubber band scrolling cannot be disabled in Lion.

The best solution to your issue is probably to use applications that do not include rubber-band scrolling. Looking around, it appears Chrome and Path Finder do not include this. Many other apps also do not use rubber band scrolling, but this is just a temporary fix as some apps will be updated to include this Lion standard.

Another fix is to stop using a Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, or MacBook Trackpad. Any other mouse that is used will not have rubber band scrolling.

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    Note that as of sometime in the v15 series, Chrome has implemented many Lion features, such as elasticity, gestures, and actual Lion-style full screen mode.
    – Jason Salaz
    Aug 24, 2011 at 14:32
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    Did you perhaps mean that we don't yet know how to do this or it's difficult to do rather than it truly cannot be done?
    – bmike ♦
    Apr 30, 2012 at 15:42
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It's somewhere in NSScrollView.NSScrollElasticity

NSScrollElasticity These constants determine the elasticity behavior for an axis of the scrollview.

We need to find a way to set NSScrollView.NSScrollElasticity of every application to 1, which = none. Details below:

enum {
    NSScrollElasticityAutomatic = 0,
    NSScrollElasticityNone      = 1,
    NSScrollElasticityAllowed   = 2,
};
typedef NSInteger NSScrollElasticity;

Constants

NSScrollElasticityAutomatic

Automatically determine whether to allow elasticity on this axis.

Available in Mac OS X v10.7 and later.

Declared in NSScrollView.h.

NSScrollElasticityNone

Disallow scrolling beyond document bounds on this axis.

Available in Mac OS X v10.7 and later.

Declared in NSScrollView.h.

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For Safari, I built an extension: https://github.com/lloeki/unelastic/releases

the rest, as they say, is history:

defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -bool false
defaults write com.apple.iTunes disable-elastic-scroll -bool YES
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Yep, you can. Go to System Preferences -> Universal Access -> Mouse & Trackpad -> Trackpad Options or Mouse Options. You can select with inertia or without inertia.

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    This doesn't affect the rubber-banding, but rather turns scrolling itself on/off, and toggles the inertia. Test it in Finder using a folder with a lot of files to see what he's getting at.
    – Curtis Tasker
    Jul 26, 2011 at 18:03
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    Inertia != rubber-band scroll bounce
    – Wavy Crab
    Jul 27, 2011 at 21:33

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