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I am new Mac user and I don't really like the Magic Mouse so I reverted to a good old 3 button mouse with a scroll wheel.

When I turn the wheel slowly, it only scrolls pixel per pixel (or per two pixels) If I turn the wheel more quickly, it scrolls nearly line by line. There is a kind of scroll wheel acceleration where the amount scrolled for each wheel step depends on the rotation speed of the wheel.

This behavior is not present in Windows where you always scroll a few lines per wheel step.

Is there a way to disable this behaviour or to tweak it in Mac OS X Lion?

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7
  • Does the mouse's vendor have drivers/software for OS X? For example, Microsoft's Intellipoint mice come with a System Preferences pane that allows you to tweak scrolling speed: i.imgur.com/GJ4SM.png
    – Jari Keinänen
    Aug 26, 2011 at 10:50
  • What brand is it?
    – daviesgeek
    Aug 26, 2011 at 16:29
  • It is a generic Dell mouse, but every mouse I have tested have the same slow scrolling acceleration
    – thieum
    Aug 29, 2011 at 10:54
  • If Chrome is your main browser you can use this extension to add this feature to chrome. However, with this extension enabled you should only use the mouse to scroll in lion. No magic mouse or magic trackpad.
    – gentmatt
    Mar 22, 2012 at 17:15
  • 22
    This behavior is really annoying. Seems like Apple wants to discourage people to use mice instead of his trackpad...
    – Pierre de LESPINAY
    Mar 6, 2013 at 11:00

11 Answers 11

Reset to default
21

Hope you're still reading - I highly recommend one of the third party mouse managers like SteerMouse or USB Overdrive or ControllerMate.

I found the arch of the Magic Mouse just too low and went back to the old reliable Logitech MX Revolution, but I will never install Logitech software again without an excellent reason. These packages will let you configure all of the buttons and SteerMouse (haven't verified for the other two) will definitely let you specify linear or accelerated wheel scrolling with variable degree of acceleration.

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  • 2
    I'm also new to MacOS. I totally agree we should never install contructor drivers for this kind of device. But I'm used to opensource softwares. Is there really people buying applications for tunning their mice (in Apple world) ?
    – Pierre de LESPINAY
    Mar 6, 2013 at 10:56
  • 3
    I bought SteerMouse. As a developer I am happy to support another developer who makes my experience better. Open Source is a fine idea, but sometimes you just need one guy with a vision.
    – Adam Eberbach
    Mar 6, 2013 at 11:39
  • 1
    I undestand your opinion. I personnaly prefer freely contribute to projets than giving money. This is the original idea of opensource.
    – Pierre de LESPINAY
    Mar 6, 2013 at 14:47
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    is there any open source program? because I absolutely refuse to pay money just to slow down scrolling in finder.
    – Wyatt Ward
    Apr 22, 2015 at 21:20
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    Shrug. You see some value in it but won't pay for it? Use inbuilt preferences or install the vendor's drivers - you paid for those with the hardware.
    – Adam Eberbach
    Apr 22, 2015 at 21:37
19

After many years of frustration with macOS & wheel mice, I've developed Smooze. Disabling the scroll acceleration and setting the number of lines you want to move on each tick are free features.

enter image description here

Smooze website

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4
  • Hi bro, what are the exact settings needed to make scrolling on Chrome identical to that of Windows? Would be great if there's a checkbox where the user can just tick to make it work like as per Windows...
    – Pacerier
    Aug 17, 2017 at 20:23
  • Adding presets is high on my to do list. Regarding the Windows Chrome settings, I never tried to compare the two.. Windows 10 will defiantly be one of the presets, though.
    – Segev
    Aug 17, 2017 at 20:47
  • Smooze breaks scrolling in XQuartz :(
    – Aido
    Jun 3, 2019 at 22:10
  • 1
    If someone comes here in 2022, there's LinearMouse. It's free and open source. Not quite as fancy as Smooze, but free > $20
    – Lord Zsolt
    Dec 24, 2022 at 20:19
10

USB Overdrive changes the default scrolling behavior so that single ticks of a scroll wheel scroll in larger increments.

It also has an option to for example make a single tick always scroll a single line. It also supports changing the tracking (but not scrolling) acceleration, like SmoothMouse or MouseAcceleration.prefPane.

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  • 5
    This works well, but it is "beg-ware" on bootup and whenever entering the dialog above, and costs $20 to register.
    – kmarsh
    Feb 7, 2014 at 15:03
  • This does not work for the trackpad.
    – gklka
    Oct 22, 2016 at 13:52
  • @kmarsh Yeah otherwise known as shareware? Do you not understand how that works?
    – tubedogg
    Feb 2, 2021 at 6:57
  • Thank you for your concern @tubedogg, I am familiar with shareware, and other dying paradigms.
    – kmarsh
    Feb 10, 2021 at 3:19
  • Clearly familiar enough to feel entitled to have the "beg" screen go away without actually purchasing the software instead of using it for free forever.
    – tubedogg
    Feb 18, 2021 at 4:27
8

There is now a free program called DiscreteScroll - https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/262329/221420 - it will make it so that one mouse wheel tick scrolls 3 lines.

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  • 1
    This answer should have more upvotes!
    – Himanshu P
    Apr 27, 2021 at 9:54
  • @HimanshuP Hear hear.
    – Paul Sanders
    Jan 7, 2022 at 22:12
8

https://mousefix.org/ -- Try this, I was facing the same issue. Sometimes wanted to use trackpad and a normal mouse together. It has a setting "Invert Direction" too. I am sure you will not go anywhere else after using this.

I am on mac Mojave 10.14.6. Its FREE!

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  • 1
    As a long time Linux user, this has made my transition a lot easier.
    – WhiteHotLoveTiger
    Feb 27, 2021 at 3:08
  • This is one of the few up-to-date free options. Saved me some nerves!
    – Tiago Duque
    May 31, 2022 at 16:44
  • As mentioned in the comment above, this is up-to-date and works perfectly for anybody migrating from Windows. (I am using it with the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Mouse).
    – PeterByte
    Oct 28, 2022 at 16:11
4

If you have logitech mouse then you can try installing Logitech Control Center for Macintosh® OS X http://www.logitech.com/en-us/support/3129?section=downloads&bit=&osid=35

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0
4

The application found here fixes the issue:

https://github.com/davekeck/DisableExtremeScrollAcceleration

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1

SmoothMouse donationware works great for me on OS X El Capitan 10.11.3

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  • 1
    At least try to bother to read the title, this app only works for cursor acceleration, and not WHEEL SCROLLING acceleration...
    – Facundo Pedrazzini
    Jul 12, 2016 at 19:30
  • Thanks for pulling me up on this (if a little aggressively) @Facundo. I installed this and was convinced it had fixed the scroll wheel, but have since discovered that it must have been something else, as I have lost the effect.
    – Chris
    Jul 16, 2016 at 14:07
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    Sorry for the aggressively part @Chris
    – Facundo Pedrazzini
    Aug 18, 2016 at 18:18
  • Not at all thanks @FacundoPedrazzini and thanks for correcting my answer.
    – Chris
    Aug 21, 2016 at 14:51
  • SmoothMouse does not work in OS X Sierra anymore, but you can control mouse pointer acceleration and scroll wheel acceleration via the command line with defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.[mouse|scrollwheel].scaling: dolphm.com/…
    – Dolph
    Oct 6, 2016 at 14:31
0

You can use this the Mouse acceleration Prefpane, download it free here:

http://triq.net/articles/mouse-acceleration-preference-pane-mac-os-x

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  • 1
    That let you tweak the mouse cursor acceleration, not the the acceleration of the scroll wheel
    – Alex Jasmin
    Nov 27, 2013 at 1:27
-3

System Preferences---Mouse

There you can speed up the scrolling speed.

Tracking Speed relates to how fast the mouse moves across the screen.

Good Luck!

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2
  • You could enlighten Robert, and the rest of us…
    – jaberg
    Mar 22, 2012 at 17:15
  • 4
    I'll do it. Acceleration is, in this context, when the mouse cursor (or page, when scrolling) moves farther when you move your finger faster. For instance, as @thieum said in the original question, "When I turn the wheel slowly, it only scrolls pixel per pixel (or per two pixels) If I turn the wheel more quickly, it scrolls nearly line by line. There is a kind of scroll wheel acceleration where the amount scrolled for each wheel step depends on the rotation speed of the wheel."
    – Tuesday
    Mar 23, 2012 at 1:39
-3

SmoothScroll for Mac fixes this problem (you can disable acceleration or give your own parameters). Even better it makes scrolling animated between wheel ticks so you get a smooth experience.

By paying for it you ensure that there's somebody out there who cares about the mouse scrolling experience on Macs.

(disclaimer: I am the developer)

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