At a Glance

Expert’s Rating

Our Verdict

Among the many changes in Lion (Mac OS X 10.7), one of the most controversial is a new way of scrolling. In Lion, when you drag two fingers downward on a MacBook’s trackpad or Apple’s Magic Trackpad (), or spin your mouse’s scroll wheel towards you, the content of the current document or window scrolls down, as well. In other words, scrolling is backwards compared to how we’ve been doing it for the past decade and a half.

The initial furor over this change is starting to die down as people have either gotten used to the New Way or used Lion’s option, in System Preferences, to switch back to the Old Way. But even among those who’ve adjusted to—or, heck, enthusiastically welcomed—this inverted scrolling, there are a couple persistent complaints. The first is that there’s no way to configure Lion to use the new scrolling orientation with trackpads while maintaining traditional scrolling with mice and trackballs. (Count me in this group—I’ve mostly adjusted to the new way of scrolling on my trackpads, likely because it’s similar to the way I touch-scroll on my iPhone and iPad, but I can’t quite acclimate to it when using my mouse’s scroll wheel or my trackball’s scroll ring.) The second is that some people who like this new direction for vertical scrolling haven’t yet taken to inverted horizontal scrolling.

Scroll Reverser Alternatives. Scroll Reverser is described as 'free app for Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Leopard that reverses the direction of scrolling'. There are four alternatives to Scroll Reverser for Mac and Windows. The most liked alternative is MOS, which is both free and Open Source.Other great apps like Scroll Reverser are Mac Mouse Fix (Free, Open Source), Smart Scroll (Paid).

Before Lion was released, I wrote about a nifty utility called Scroll Reverser that lets you invert scrolling. At the time, it was designed to let Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) users get a head start on Lion’s new scrolling; it remains a useful way for Snow Leopard users to invert scrolling.

But since that article, Scroll Reverser has received a number of significant updates, and the current version works great in Lion to let you customize scrolling beyond OS X’s simple inverted/traditional checkbox. Specifically, Scroll Reverser addresses the aforementioned shortcomings of Lion’s scrolling options.

Scroll Reverser is a free Mac app that reverses the direction of scrolling, with independent settings for trackpads and mice. Scroll Reverser was made by Nick Moore with language translations by other contributors. To get in touch, contact support@pilotmoon.com, tweet @pilotmoon or heasd over to Scroll Reverser Discussions on GitHub. Scroll Reverser lets you reverse your scrolling on 10.4 and above too. It's a pure usermode app, no drivers or kexts to install. Uninstallation is a simple drag-to-trash. For context, Scroll Reverser ( ) is a tool that allows users to set different scrolling types (natural or reverse) depending Press J to jump to the feed. Press question mark to.

Launch Scroll Reverser, and its systemwide menu lets you quickly adjust your scrolling preferences. By default, all scrolling is reversed (from whatever your System Preferences setting is) for all input devices. You can quickly disable Scroll Reverser by choosing Reverse Scrolling from the menu to uncheck it. (Scroll Reverser affects only traditional scrolling; it doesn’t affect other Multi-Touch gestures.)

But the Preferences sub-menu is where Scroll Reverser’s real utility lies. Here you can choose which devices—trackpads, mice, and tablets—are affected by Scroll Reverser. (The Mouse category includes most trackballs.) In other words, if you want to keep Lion’s inverted scrolling for your trackpads and tablets, but use traditional scrolling when using a mouse or trackball, you can do so. You can also choose whether to reverse both horizontal and vertical scrolling, or just one or the other.

There are a couple limitations here. One is that Scroll Reverser depends on information from Mac OS X to determine the type of each device. For example, the non-Multi-Touch trackpads on older Mac laptops are treated as mice, rather than trackpads, as are the trackpads on some third-party keyboards with built-in trackpads or touchpads.

Another is that your horizontal and vertical settings apply to every class of device (trackpad, mouse, or tablet) you’ve chosen to “reverse.” I’d like to see separate horizontal and vertical settings for each type of input device. In addition to being more flexible, such a settings interface would actually make configuring Scroll Reverser less confusing—between Lion’s own scroll-direction setting, Scroll Reverser’s main on/off setting, and the various settings for directions and device types, sometimes figuring out the right combination of settings to get your desired results feels like an LSAT question.

Still, Scroll Reverser is a welcome solution for customizing Lion. For some people, it just may be the thing that finally gets them using Lion’s new scrolling—at least on some of their input devices.

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Announcement: In a future update, Scroll Reverser will become a paid app. You can read more about my decision here.

For macOS 10.12 and later (Intel and Apple Silicon):
Download Scroll Reverser 1.8 (3 Dec 2020; release notes)

For OS X 10.7—10.11 (Intel):
Download Scroll Reverser 1.7.6 (11 May 2017)

For OS X 10.4 (PowerPC) and 10.5—10.6 (Intel 32 and 64-bit):
Download Scroll Reverser 1.5.1 (12 Mar 2012)

Scroll Reverser is a free Mac app that reverses the direction of scrolling, with independent settings for trackpads and mice.

Scroll Reverser was made by Nick Moore with language translations by other contributors. To get in touch, contact support@pilotmoon.com, tweet @pilotmoon or heasd over to Scroll Reverser Discussions on GitHub. Please also check out my other apps.

Scroll Reverser is free of charge and is made available under the Apache Licence 2.0. The source code is available.

If you wish to make a voluntary donation you can do so below.

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FAQ / Troubleshooting

Can't enable Scroll Reverser. If Scroll Reverser does not respond when you try to check 'Enable Scroll Reverser', please try the following:
1. Quit Scroll Reverser.
2. Ensure Scroll Reverser is located in your Applications folder.
3. Go to System Preferences → Security & Privacy → Privacy → Accessibility.
4. Use the '–' button to remove Scroll Reverser from the list; then add back with '+'.
5. Now start Scroll Reverser. It ought to work this time.

Scroll Reverser sees my trackpad as a mouse. There's a system setting in Accessibility that lets you double-tap with three fingers to zoom. Unfortunately, when it is turned on, it stops Scroll Reverser working properly. Look for the checkbox: Accessibility → Zoom → Advanced → Controls → Use trackpad gesture to zoom, and make sure is is not checked (more information here).

Also, if you have an older Mac without a multi-touch trackpad (late 2007 and earlier) then Scroll Reverser will see your trackpad as a mouse. This also affects some third party external trackpads.

Can you make it reverse swipe gestures too? No, this is not possible. However, swipe direction respects the 'Scroll Direction: Natural' setting in System Preferences. Set that to your liking, then use Scroll Reverser to adjust scrolling with respect to that base setting.

I am controlling a machine via remote desktop, and Scroll Reverser is running on both the local and remote machine. Anything I can do to make it work nicely? Run this command at terminal on the remote machine: defaults write com.pilotmoon.scroll-reverser ReverseOnlyRawInput -bool YES then quit and restart Scroll Reverser.

Version History

1.8 (3 Dec 2020)

• Updated for macOS 11.0 Big Sur.
• Universal app for both Intel and Apple M1 chip.
• Dark mode.
• New user interface in prefs prompts you when required permissions are missing (Accessibility and Input Monitoring).
• Fixed crashing due to missing Accessibility permission.
• Reimplemented Start at Login functionality to be more reliable now, I hope.
• Removed the “Reverse Tablet” option.
• The minimum system requirement is now macOS 10.12.6.

1.7.6 (11 May 2017)

• Some internal changes to the way preferences are loaded. (As part of investigating Issue #38: Scroll reverser preferences randomly change.)
• Translation updates, including a new Norwegian translation (thanks, Patrick).

Scroll Reverser Github

1.7.5 (24 Apr 2017)

• Fix: Presence of Scroll Reverser triggering additional security dialogs (for example, in Keychain permissions dialogs);
• Fix: 'Shake to locate cursor' not working with Trackpad while Scroll Reverser is running;
• Fix: Notification center getting stuck half-open while Scroll Reverser is running.
• Added Simplified Chinese (zh-CN) translation. (Thanks, Ruocheng Wang.)
• Added Dutch translation. (Thanks, Erik.)

1.7.4 (11 Nov 2016)

• The relaunch-on-wake implementation is now more robust.
• A small correction to the Polish translation.

1.7.3 (7 Nov 2016)

• Scroll Reverser now silently relaunches itself when your Mac wakes from sleep. (This is because of a problem where macOS sometimes stops sending gesture events to Scroll Reverser after awaking from sleep.)
• Added Hungarian and Polish translations. (Thanks, Léki and Artur.)
• Fixed a bug where, on unchecking 'Show in menu bar', the 'Icon Hidden' message would appear multiple times.

1.7.2 (26 May 2015)

• Fixes for bug where Scroll Reverser would sometimes stop working, requiring app restart. (Now it should hopefully not stop working, and if it does you can just toggle Scroll Reverser off/on to reset it.)
• You can now right-click (or control-click) the menu bar icon to toggle Scroll Reverser on/off.
• New algorithm to (hopefully) distinguish more accurately between trackpad and mouse.
• Added a debug console to help with fault-finding. To show the debug window, option-click (⌥-click) the Scroll Reverser menu bar icon.
• Added Korean, Russian, Slovak and Traditional Chinese translations. (Thanks Josef, Byungkook Jang, Dmitry, and Johnny.)

1.7.1 (7 Jan 2015)

• Fixed bug (introduced in v1.7) where Scroll Reverser would sometimes stop working after using it for a while.
• Added Romanian translation. (Thanks, Gabriel.)

1.7 (18 Dec 2014)

• Brand new preferences window to replace the clunky old menu.
• Important fixes for compatibility with the upcoming Yosemite update 10.10.2.
• Adds AppleScript support for turning Scroll Reverser on and off.
• Now treats a Wacom mouse's scrolling as coming from a mouse, rather than a tablet.
• Gave the app icon a freshen up.
• Localized in Brazilian Portuguese, German, Greek, Italian, and Japanese. (Thanks, Humberto, Peter, Nikos, Vincenzo and Fu-sen.)

1.6.1 (25 Sep 2014)

• Updated for OS X Yosemite. (Specifically, the menu bar icon now supports Dark Mode.)

1.6 (21 May 2013)

• Updated the status icon for retina displays.
• Better accuracy detecting traditional wheel mice from trackpads. (No change to Magic and Mighty mouse detection.)
• Added the option to automatically check for updates.
• Fix minor bug which casused a console warning about 'scrollPhase is deprecated...'.
• Minimum system requirerement is now OS X 10.7 Lion.

1.5.1 (12 Mar 2012)

• Signed with a Developer ID for OS X 10.8 Gatekeeper.

1.5 (23 Feb 2012)

• Now works with OS X 10.4 Tiger.
• More reliable detection between mouse and trackpad.
• Fixed a bug that led to high memory usage.
• Added a welcome window that appears on the first run.
• Added German localization. (Thanks, Peter.)

Mac Scroll Reverser

1.4.4 (29 Sep 2011)

• Fixed a memory leak.
• Fixed a problem with the Italian localization.
• Added Romanian localization. (Thanks, Gabriel.)

1.4.3 (9 Sep 2011)

• Added French localization. (Thanks, Marcel and E.)

1.4.2 (18 Aug 2011)

• Changed default on Lion to not reverse horizontal scrolling.
• Added Spanish localization. (Thanks, Pedro.)

1.4.1 (18 Aug 2011)

• Restored PowerPC and 32-bit Intel support.
• Better Wacom tablet detection.

1.4 (11 Aug 2011)

• Added independent settings for horizontal and vertical scrolling.
• Added independent settings for scrolling with trackpad, mouse and Wacom tablet.
• Fixed a Firefox compatibility problem.
• Dropped PowerPC and Intel 32-bit support (by mistake).
• Added Italian localization. (Thanks, Vincenzo.)

1.3 (28 Jun 2011)

• Added PowerPC support.
• Added Greek localization. (Thanks, ecrisis.)

1.2 (11 Apr 2011)

• Added option to hide the menu bar icon.
• Added Brazilian Portuguese localization. (Thanks, Humberto.)

1.1 (1 Apr 2011)

• Bugfixes.

Scroll Reverser

Scroll Reverser Windows

1.0 (8 Mar 2011)

• Initial release.