How to Change Scrolling Speed on Mac

Scrolling speed on the Mac is two different settings in two different places: a mouse wheel slider sitting in plain sight, and a trackpad slider buried in Accessibility where almost nobody looks. Here's how to tune both — and why they're separate from tracking speed.

Mouse scrolling speed

1. Open System Settings → Mouse (the pane appears when a mouse is connected).
2. Drag the Scrolling speed slider. Slower is left, faster is right.
3. Test in a long page as you go — the change applies immediately.

This slider scales how far each wheel notch (or Magic Mouse finger-swipe) moves the page. It's independent of Tracking speed, which controls the pointer, not the page. To undo an experiment, drag the slider back toward the middle — the default sits near the center.

Trackpad scrolling speed

The Trackpad pane in System Settings has no scrolling speed control — Apple parked it in Accessibility instead:

1. Open System Settings → Accessibility → Pointer Control.
2. Click Trackpad Options…
3. Make sure Use trackpad for scrolling is on, then drag the Scrolling speed slider.
4. Click OK.

The path is the same on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia. The default is a touch below the midpoint; note where the slider sits before you move it if you want a precise undo.

Speed versus inertia: know which one bothers you

Before you push either slider to an extreme, diagnose the actual complaint:

• "Every scroll goes too far" — that's speed. Lower the slider.
• "Scrolling keeps coasting after I stop" — that's inertia, the flick-and-glide momentum. It's a separate control in the same Trackpad Options sheet, and turning it off makes short scrolls exact without touching speed.
• "The pointer moves too fast" — that's tracking speed, back in the main Trackpad or Mouse pane.

The two trackpad settings interact: high speed with inertia on feels like ice, and low speed with inertia off feels like mud. Most people who fine-tune land near the default speed and simply decide whether they want inertia.

If the slider seems to do nothing

Two common causes. First, vendor mouse software — Logi Options+, Razer Synapse, and similar drivers apply their own scroll scaling that overrides or stacks with the system slider; pick one layer and leave the other at neutral. Second, some apps handle scrolling themselves (games, remote desktops, some Electron apps), so system-wide changes won't register there — check that app's own preferences.

Browsers deserve a special mention: a page's smooth-scrolling script can mask speed changes entirely. Test your slider in Finder or a PDF in Preview, where nothing intercepts the events, before concluding it's broken.

Magic Mouse notes

The Magic Mouse scrolls with a finger-swipe across its touch surface rather than a wheel, and the Mouse pane's Scrolling speed? It isn't there for the Magic Mouse on every layout — if you don't see it, the Accessibility route covers mice too: System Settings → Accessibility → Pointer Control → Mouse Options… holds a Scrolling speed slider and a scrolling toggle of its own. That sheet works for any connected mouse, Apple or otherwise, and it's the one place the control is guaranteed to exist on macOS 13 through 15. As with the trackpad sheet, click OK to apply, and note the original slider position first if you want a clean way back.

One more scrolling tweak worth knowing

If your precision problem is momentum rather than distance — scrolls that glide past the line you wanted — turn off the coasting instead: see how to turn off scrolling inertia on Mac.