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.
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.
