What is Inertial Scrolling?
In macOS, Apple uses a feature called “Inertial Scrolling” (sometimes referred to as smooth scrolling) to mimic physical physics on your trackpad or Magic Mouse. When you swipe your fingers to scroll down a long webpage and let go, the page doesn’t stop instantly. Instead, it continues to glide or “coast” for a second before slowly coming to a natural halt, just like spinning a physical wheel.
While this feels very premium and natural for casual web browsing, it can be a nightmare for precision work. If you are editing a massive spreadsheet, scrubbing through a video timeline, or trying to highlight a specific line of code, the page coasting past your target after you have stopped moving your fingers is incredibly frustrating. You can disable this physics engine and make the scrolling stop exactly when your fingers stop.
How to Disable Smooth Scrolling on a Mac
You can turn off inertial scrolling by digging into the Accessibility settings.
- Click the Apple Logo in the top-left corner of your Mac’s screen.
- Select System Settings… (or System Preferences on older versions of macOS).
- In the left-hand sidebar, scroll down and click on Accessibility.
- In the main right-hand pane, look under the “Motor” section and click on Pointer Control.
- Click the Trackpad Options… button (or Mouse Options, depending on your device).
- A small popup window will appear. Look for the toggle switch labelled Use inertia.
- Toggle the switch to the Off position.
- Click OK.
From now on, scrolling on your Mac will feel entirely linear. The moment you lift your fingers from the trackpad, the screen will lock into place instantly with zero coasting or gliding.