Testing Tip: Always Show Scrollbars
This scrollbar serves no purpose, so it will become visual noise for a lot of your users. But when you yourself use “shy” scrollbars, you might not even realize.
Of course, the scrollbar is just a symptom of a bigger problem – an accidentally scrolling surface that will be janky to everyone regardless of their scrollbar visibility status.
Always-visible scrollbars make it easier to spot these, not to mention also being helpful in spotting[…]
Previously:
Update (2026-02-05): Jeff Johnson:
Also, Keyboard navigation
Update (2026-06-02): Harlan Haskins:
One of the best things I did when working on a Mac app was use a 1x display. You’d be shocked how many apps have simple pixel rounding errors.
Previously:
Update (2026-06-17): Pierre Igot:
Apple, when I said that I wanted macOS to always show scroll bars, I didn’t say I was willing to make an exception for the horizontal scroll bar in the Weather app.
[…]
It doesn’t even show the scroll bar when scrolling.
Update (2026-06-23): Mario Guzmán:
The state of 16x16 icons in Finder (1x display). If we can’t support them correctly, we might as well just take them out in list view if displayed on 1x displays.
You can barely make out what they’re supposed to be. Unless we can have Icon Composer allow us to do 16x16@1x and 16x16@2x, this really isn’t going to fly.
This is a great example of 16×16 and 32×32 for macOS apps. Before Icon Composer, you should be making icons for each required size by hand (including 16×16 and 32×32). The reason being is that you’d want to reduce details in your icons as they got smaller and smaller. Make sure they’re pixel-aligned!
Previously:
Update (2026-06-24): Mario Guzmán:
Since SF Symbols look super blurry on 1x displays, I’ve decided to make my own bitmaps of them just for 1x displays. If my app moves into a 1x display, it swaps out the SF Symbol with my own icons.
The only issue is I can’t get them perfectly pixel aligned. macOS uses 3px lines on 2x. So if I make 1px lines, they’re way too thing. If I make them 2x, they’re way too bold.
So in most cases, I need to stick to 1.5px for lines. Still better!
Update (2026-07-13): John Gruber:
Here’s an example illustrating why I think disappearing scroll bars are indefensible on the Mac. First screenshot here is my Bluetooth settings without them. I’m trying to pair a keyboard. It looks like my Mac just doesn’t see it. There’s no visual indication that there is more below.
Second screenshot, with scroll bars, shows me that there is more below. And if I scroll down, oh, there’s the list of “Nearby Devices” and the keyboard I’m trying to pair with.
What’s wrong with these pictures (of the Music app in macOS)?
Quite simply, that there is no indication that there are more albums. There’s no scroll bar (and of course horizontal scrolling with the mouse doesn’t work either), but the two arrows that normally indicate that there is more (or not) at either end are also not visible, unless one hovers over the albums with the mouse.
2 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
Or, you could always show scrollbars because that is the way any GUI should work. As far as I'm concerned, this shouldn't even be an option - turning off scrollbars was one of the first steps along Apple's path to UI enshitification.
I agree with all the things people gripe about when they’re complaining about scrollbars that aren’t always there, but I’d rather not have them cluttering up my windows by default than have them cluttering up the edge all the time. Maybe I’d have a different opinion if I were a diehard three-button-no-wheel mouse user, but I’m not.
