Wondering where the scroll bars have gone and how to make them appear? Looking for something to grab so you can scroll a page fast? Find out here how to show the scroll bar on a Mac, just when you need it or permanently.
First, There’s a German Word Swimming on Lake Bled
The picturesque Slovenian lake famous for a church and island in its middle also carries barges you can take to get to the island and the church. On Lake Bled, the flat-bottomed boats are called “pletna”; on Austrian and German lakes just to the north, these boats are sometimes known as “Plätten”—because of their flat bottom. In German, “plätten” means “to flatten”. The Slovenian boats may or may not have gotten its name up there.
Either way, have the scroll bars on your Mac been flattened to a degree that makes them invisible? While we marvel in—alas, flat and merely two-dimensional—pictures of Blejsko jezero, here’s how to make the scroll bars surface again:
How to Show the Scroll Bar on a Mac
To see the scroll bar in a window on a Mac:
- Begin scrolling in either direction with trackpad, mouse or keyboard.
Trackpad: Typically, swipe with two fingers.
Mouse: Use the scroll wheel or swipe with one finger on a Magic Mouse.
Keyboard: You can also press up (↑︎) or down (↓︎), for instance, after clicking to focus the window.
Now, you can click or grab the scrollbar to scroll fast.
Set Up the Mac to Always Show Scroll Bars
Time needed: 2 minutes
To have macOS always show the scroll bar when content exists outside what is currently visible in a window:
- Open System Settings on the Mac.
Here’s how: Open the Apple logo menu, for example, and choose System Settings….
- Open the Appearance category.
- Select Always for Show scrollbars.
Always means always: Note that whenever scrolling is possible in a window, a scroll bar will be continually visible and reduce the possible content width or height (or both) by its size.
Other options: See below for the other two possible options.
How to Show the Scroll Bar on a Mac: FAQ
What do the options for “Show scroll bars” mean?
You can make a Mac more or less eager to hide scroll bars with the Show scroll bars setting in System Settings:
- Automatically based on mouse or trackpad
If a mouse or trackpad is connected to the Mac that lets you scroll with a finger gesture—such as Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse—, macOS will hide scroll bars until you start scrolling; if a mouse without a touch surface is connected (or no mouse or trackpad at all), for example, scroll bars will always show. - When scrolling
macOS will always hide scroll bars until you start scrolling; note that this makes scrolling inconvenient with a mouse that lacks a scroll wheel and a touch surface, since you can only show scroll bars (to grab with the mouse) if you begin scrolling with the keyboard. - Always
Scroll bars always show irrespective of the mouse or trackpad you are using.
(How to show the scroll bar on a Mac tested with macOS Sonoma 14.1; updated November 2023)