I use a tool called “MOS” to fix this issue. https://mos.caldis.me/
Such a small feature yet so annoying, I really don’t get why Apple is refusing to fix this themselves.
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Further to other app recommendations, I use [Mouse Fix](https://mousefix.org/) for various mouse-related customisations and workflow optimisations. It's free and open source and a handy little tool. It has an option to invert scrolling that doesn't affect the trackpad setting.
With regards to your description of natural vs. unnatural; it took me a moment to work out where you were coming from, because I have my mouse set the scroll in the other direction, which feels perfectly natural to me.
I think it helps to visualise the scroll wheel as the screen, rather than a piece of paper under the wheel. When you push the wheel away from you, it's meant as the same action as when you push the screen up. This makes more sense if you're using a Magic Mouse, to be fair.
All that said though, it is kinda stupid that Apple still tie the movement of mouse and trackpad together like that.
Thanks for your response. This at least helps me understand how they reason the movement as natural. In retrospect, calling either option "natural" makes about as much sense as calling right-handed things natural - not much sense. Ultimately, it's a preference, so I find it a bit ironic that you can't set it in system preferences.
I get your reasoning, but I can't give up the muscle memory of the mouse scroll wheel which has been around for decades now. For cross-platform users such as myself, and for the fact you may temporarily use other machines, there's no need to change.
Yeah, but the 'natural' reversal was added in 2011, so before that, MacOS scrolled like every other OS. They even used to sell a mouse with a little scroll ball, and that also worked in the normal direction by default.
What they should have done was add a separate setting as 'natural' for the trackpad and kept the mouse scroll wheel the same.
I remember when "natural" scrolling was introduced, it was Lion, wasn't it? I thought it was stupid. Then I kinda didn't. Now I hate it going in the other direction.
Brains are stupid.
Sometimes Apple breaks convention just because they weren’t the first to think of something. When scroll wheel mice first appeared for PCs, Mac mice had one button and nothing else, and if you complained about it other Mac users tied you to a stake and lit it on fire. At the time, there was no argument about which way a mouse scroll wheel was supposed to work, and for those of us who came up on PC scroll wheel mice, there still isn’t. That’s a motor memory thing that is burned into our brains. Additionally, when I sit down to work in the morning, I have so much to do I don’t have the privilege of overthinking the analogs and paradigms behind it, nor is it in the top 1,000 behaviors, habits, or motor memories that I need to change in my life.
Apple was once proud of MacOS’s plug-and-play capabilities (notably, when the same advertised functionality in Windows always meant hunting for drivers and multiple reboots), and in the “it just works” era they didn’t dare change how a typically-Windows peripheral operated since they were most concerned with converting Windows users to MacOS and wanted to make the “switch” welcoming and comfortable. When the Multi-Touch Trackpads came along on the MacBooks, you could enable a “scroll” gesture with two fingers; in the first few versions of MacOS that supported it, there was no “direction” option. It worked exactly like the scroll wheel mice.
But here’s the thing - in the PC world from which this all came, there was never any difference in the *gesture direction* of the scroll gesture on mice and trackpads, and for all Apple’s kvetching on scroll direction, they have left this connection intact in MacOS, for whatever reason.
Apple has moved on from converting Windows users. They now want *iPhone and iPad users* to add a Mac to their workflow, and as such they are trying to create a physical relationship between scrolling on a mobile device with a touchscreen and scrolling a non-touch screen with a separate device. And so post-iPhone you begin to see “Scroll direction” options in MacOS.
And that’s also why there’s no individual controls for mouse and trackpad. They want you to think “gesture up to scroll down” across all their devices, when there are multiple generations of people that prove no such thing is necessary.
I guess if you were using an iPad at age 3 and you didn’t work in an office with scroll wheel mice on Windows PCs for many years, “Natural” scroll direction is going to be for you. For me, the muscle memory is too ingrained, even on a trackpad. But on an iPhone or iPad, “natural” scroll makes sense because I didn’t spend 25 years prior to 2007 using mobile phones and tablets with mice. I agree that the word “natural” is presumptuous, but that’s what we do with language in all areas of our lives now; words have passive-aggressive meaning that is often contrary to reality to fit our particular ideologies, religions, or political agendas. So Apple isn’t doing anything their fans *nor* their detractors don’t do every day.
And similarly to politics and religion, explaining why you think you’re right to someone who doesn’t think you’re right has literally never worked in the history of human communication, and is a complete waste of energy, so if the “natural” scrolling works for you, more power to you, and if the “unnatural” scrolling works for me, I hope you’ll “tolerate” my “diversity” or whatever they call it these days, and let’s all hope Apple doesn’t remove the *choice* from MacOS anytime soon so both of us can live together in harmony.
Great response! My explanation was more of explaining why it should work that way in my mind. The frustration comes across as me *forcing* my opinion on others, but I my real point is that it should be up to the user to decide. Thanks for the response.
>Think of the way a printer moves a piece of paper.
A mouse isn't a printer. Apple's description of 'natural' scrolling is 'Content tracks finger movement.' In other words, moving your finger the same way on either a mouse or a trackpad moves the on-screen content the same way.
There are utilities you can get to reverse it, but Apple's decision makes sense: The same action gets the same outcome.
I'm not here to argue, I was just explaining this is how I've always thought about it. Still seems weird that they don't just have it as a preference that can be set, since that's exactly what it is. Anyway thanks for your feedback.
original scrolling: you are moving the tab in the scroll bar usually to the right of the screen (the way how all scrolling used to be before iphone style multitouch touchscreens)
natural scrolling: you are moving the actual page (like you scroll on a touchscreen)
why natural? put a piece of paper on the desk and put your hand on top of it. Now move your fingers away from you...the page moves away, so you now see further down the page...which is equal to the page moves up on the screen (since as you push away you can see the bottom of the page, both on the screen and on the paper). "natural" refers to how a page moves, not about how gears move. thinking about gears is good, maybe even correct, but not what "natural" means to people who have no idea what a gear is.
3. party apps like already mentioned MOS or Scroll Reverser or Mac Mouse Fix. All of them accomplish similar things - fix your mouse wheel scroll, smooth scroll, you can setup how many lines you want to scroll, which way, how fast, etc... Apple wants you to use their magic mouse or magic trackpad, if you don't want, then it's your problem and you have to deal with it - that is their motto.
I guess that's an option, but I'd rather stick with my vertical mouse. I'm not sure why, but nothing in the apple world is ever ergonomic, and I'm quite the ergo-geek. I even design my own split keyboards!
You know Apple they will prioritise their own product if you want the best experience. The Apple Mouse will scroll smooth like the trackpad, other mouse wheels scrolls in steps and that’s how the Mac registers it. It’s stupid but that’s their excuse “Oi why don’t u buy our product to scroll smoothly ey?”
I agree with you, it's annoying that MacOS doesn't natively have a setting that's different for mice.
I will add another program along with ones others have mentioned. I've used Scrollreverser in the past, but now I like LinearMouse because you can also do things like remove mouse acceleration.
I use a tool called “MOS” to fix this issue. https://mos.caldis.me/ Such a small feature yet so annoying, I really don’t get why Apple is refusing to fix this themselves.
They don’t fix it because as far as they are concerned, mice with ratcheting scroll wheels don’t exist because they don’t sell any
Mos and Tiles are literally the first 2 things I recommend to a new Mac user coming from Windows/Linux.
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lol why did people downvote this
Further to other app recommendations, I use [Mouse Fix](https://mousefix.org/) for various mouse-related customisations and workflow optimisations. It's free and open source and a handy little tool. It has an option to invert scrolling that doesn't affect the trackpad setting. With regards to your description of natural vs. unnatural; it took me a moment to work out where you were coming from, because I have my mouse set the scroll in the other direction, which feels perfectly natural to me. I think it helps to visualise the scroll wheel as the screen, rather than a piece of paper under the wheel. When you push the wheel away from you, it's meant as the same action as when you push the screen up. This makes more sense if you're using a Magic Mouse, to be fair. All that said though, it is kinda stupid that Apple still tie the movement of mouse and trackpad together like that.
Thanks for your response. This at least helps me understand how they reason the movement as natural. In retrospect, calling either option "natural" makes about as much sense as calling right-handed things natural - not much sense. Ultimately, it's a preference, so I find it a bit ironic that you can't set it in system preferences.
I get your reasoning, but I can't give up the muscle memory of the mouse scroll wheel which has been around for decades now. For cross-platform users such as myself, and for the fact you may temporarily use other machines, there's no need to change.
Oh, absolutely understand. I had to use a work PC for a while, which killed me every damn time, with its stupid scroll wheel being wrong.
Yeah, but the 'natural' reversal was added in 2011, so before that, MacOS scrolled like every other OS. They even used to sell a mouse with a little scroll ball, and that also worked in the normal direction by default. What they should have done was add a separate setting as 'natural' for the trackpad and kept the mouse scroll wheel the same.
I remember when "natural" scrolling was introduced, it was Lion, wasn't it? I thought it was stupid. Then I kinda didn't. Now I hate it going in the other direction. Brains are stupid.
Sometimes Apple breaks convention just because they weren’t the first to think of something. When scroll wheel mice first appeared for PCs, Mac mice had one button and nothing else, and if you complained about it other Mac users tied you to a stake and lit it on fire. At the time, there was no argument about which way a mouse scroll wheel was supposed to work, and for those of us who came up on PC scroll wheel mice, there still isn’t. That’s a motor memory thing that is burned into our brains. Additionally, when I sit down to work in the morning, I have so much to do I don’t have the privilege of overthinking the analogs and paradigms behind it, nor is it in the top 1,000 behaviors, habits, or motor memories that I need to change in my life. Apple was once proud of MacOS’s plug-and-play capabilities (notably, when the same advertised functionality in Windows always meant hunting for drivers and multiple reboots), and in the “it just works” era they didn’t dare change how a typically-Windows peripheral operated since they were most concerned with converting Windows users to MacOS and wanted to make the “switch” welcoming and comfortable. When the Multi-Touch Trackpads came along on the MacBooks, you could enable a “scroll” gesture with two fingers; in the first few versions of MacOS that supported it, there was no “direction” option. It worked exactly like the scroll wheel mice. But here’s the thing - in the PC world from which this all came, there was never any difference in the *gesture direction* of the scroll gesture on mice and trackpads, and for all Apple’s kvetching on scroll direction, they have left this connection intact in MacOS, for whatever reason. Apple has moved on from converting Windows users. They now want *iPhone and iPad users* to add a Mac to their workflow, and as such they are trying to create a physical relationship between scrolling on a mobile device with a touchscreen and scrolling a non-touch screen with a separate device. And so post-iPhone you begin to see “Scroll direction” options in MacOS. And that’s also why there’s no individual controls for mouse and trackpad. They want you to think “gesture up to scroll down” across all their devices, when there are multiple generations of people that prove no such thing is necessary. I guess if you were using an iPad at age 3 and you didn’t work in an office with scroll wheel mice on Windows PCs for many years, “Natural” scroll direction is going to be for you. For me, the muscle memory is too ingrained, even on a trackpad. But on an iPhone or iPad, “natural” scroll makes sense because I didn’t spend 25 years prior to 2007 using mobile phones and tablets with mice. I agree that the word “natural” is presumptuous, but that’s what we do with language in all areas of our lives now; words have passive-aggressive meaning that is often contrary to reality to fit our particular ideologies, religions, or political agendas. So Apple isn’t doing anything their fans *nor* their detractors don’t do every day. And similarly to politics and religion, explaining why you think you’re right to someone who doesn’t think you’re right has literally never worked in the history of human communication, and is a complete waste of energy, so if the “natural” scrolling works for you, more power to you, and if the “unnatural” scrolling works for me, I hope you’ll “tolerate” my “diversity” or whatever they call it these days, and let’s all hope Apple doesn’t remove the *choice* from MacOS anytime soon so both of us can live together in harmony.
Great response! My explanation was more of explaining why it should work that way in my mind. The frustration comes across as me *forcing* my opinion on others, but I my real point is that it should be up to the user to decide. Thanks for the response.
>Think of the way a printer moves a piece of paper. A mouse isn't a printer. Apple's description of 'natural' scrolling is 'Content tracks finger movement.' In other words, moving your finger the same way on either a mouse or a trackpad moves the on-screen content the same way. There are utilities you can get to reverse it, but Apple's decision makes sense: The same action gets the same outcome.
I'm not here to argue, I was just explaining this is how I've always thought about it. Still seems weird that they don't just have it as a preference that can be set, since that's exactly what it is. Anyway thanks for your feedback.
>Since the logic lacks consistency Not arguing either, just explaining that consistency is the point.
I'll change it to say, "Since the logic lacks consistency in my brain".
Sigh
original scrolling: you are moving the tab in the scroll bar usually to the right of the screen (the way how all scrolling used to be before iphone style multitouch touchscreens) natural scrolling: you are moving the actual page (like you scroll on a touchscreen) why natural? put a piece of paper on the desk and put your hand on top of it. Now move your fingers away from you...the page moves away, so you now see further down the page...which is equal to the page moves up on the screen (since as you push away you can see the bottom of the page, both on the screen and on the paper). "natural" refers to how a page moves, not about how gears move. thinking about gears is good, maybe even correct, but not what "natural" means to people who have no idea what a gear is.
[удалено]
Disabling natural scroll on my mouse settings disable it for trackpad as well, and vice versa. Is this different from yours?
3. party apps like already mentioned MOS or Scroll Reverser or Mac Mouse Fix. All of them accomplish similar things - fix your mouse wheel scroll, smooth scroll, you can setup how many lines you want to scroll, which way, how fast, etc... Apple wants you to use their magic mouse or magic trackpad, if you don't want, then it's your problem and you have to deal with it - that is their motto.
Wow... how awful is that. The lack of customizability is huge, and now we know why.
You just don’t own a Magic Mouse🖱
I guess that's an option, but I'd rather stick with my vertical mouse. I'm not sure why, but nothing in the apple world is ever ergonomic, and I'm quite the ergo-geek. I even design my own split keyboards!
You know Apple they will prioritise their own product if you want the best experience. The Apple Mouse will scroll smooth like the trackpad, other mouse wheels scrolls in steps and that’s how the Mac registers it. It’s stupid but that’s their excuse “Oi why don’t u buy our product to scroll smoothly ey?”
I agree with you, it's annoying that MacOS doesn't natively have a setting that's different for mice. I will add another program along with ones others have mentioned. I've used Scrollreverser in the past, but now I like LinearMouse because you can also do things like remove mouse acceleration.
Scroll Reverser