The Internal Micro-Animations
Windows 10 is filled with tiny, almost imperceptible animations designed to make the operating system feel cohesive and responsive. The “Animate controls and elements inside windows” setting governs many of these internal flourishes. For instance, when you click a scrollbar track, the scrollbar gently glides to the new position instead of snapping instantly. When you click a toggle switch in the Settings app, the pill slides smoothly from left to right. When you click a button, it might show a brief pressing animation.
While these micro-animations provide excellent visual feedback for casual users, they cumulatively slow down power users. Every time a button animates or a scrollbar glides, you are forced to wait a fraction of a second before the action is considered “complete” visually. Furthermore, on older computers with weak integrated graphics, rendering these internal window animations can cause the entire application to feel sluggish or laggy. Disabling this setting strips away the flair, forcing buttons to click instantly and scrollbars to snap immediately to your cursor.
How to Turn Off Element Animations
You can force internal window controls to react instantly via the advanced system performance settings.
- Click the Start button and type Advanced system settings.
- Select View advanced system settings from the search results. This directly opens the System Properties window to the Advanced tab.
- Under the Performance section near the top, click the Settings… button.
- A new “Performance Options” window will appear. Ensure you are on the Visual Effects tab.
- Scroll through the list of effects and locate the checkbox labelled Animate controls and elements inside windows.
- Click the checkbox to remove the checkmark.
- Click Apply, and then click OK.
From now on, toggles, buttons, and scrollbars inside your applications and Windows settings will snap to their states instantly, providing a much faster, more direct-response feel.