Use This App to Add Windows-Style Automatic Scrolling to MacOS
You just set up your brand new Mac and are about to scroll through a long document. You press the middle mouse button, expecting to be able to scroll by moving the cursor the way you can in Windows or Linux. Nothing happens. What’s going on?
It turns out that macOS doesn’t support this feature, sometimes called auto-scrolling. It causes a lot of little annoyances when switching from one operating system to another, even if you prefer the one you’re switching to. This is an example, but as usual, there’s an app you can install to make everything work as expected.
Scrollapp is a free, open-source app that does one thing: add a fast scrolling feature to your Mac. This simple app can be downloaded from the website and installed by dragging it into your Applications folder. After trying to launch it, you may see a security warning – you’ll have to go to the Security & Privacy section of the Settings app to enable the app . Once you do, you’ll see Scrollapp running in your menu bar, as shown above.
After that, you can scroll just like in Windows — just press the middle button and move the mouse. You can also enable this feature from the menu bar — just click the Start/Stop Auto-Scroll option — or by pressing the Control key and scrolling a bit. The latter option works great for trackpads.
Scrolling speed is based on how far the cursor moves from the starting point, meaning you can scroll faster by moving the cursor further. This is a great way to scroll through a long document when you’re looking for something specific.
Turning off auto-scroll is easy: just left-click or middle-click again.
It’s a simple app, sure, but it solves a specific problem new Mac users face. If you have more problems like this, we have a tip on how to add the best Windows features to your Mac , so be sure to check it out for more tips like this.