Learn how to disable smooth scrolling in the Safari browser to scroll web pages line by line when pressing the arrow keys on your Mac’s keyboard.
Smooth scrolling of web pages has been available in Safari for years now, including macOS Sequoia, the latest Mac operating system.
It’s enabled by default, but you can switch to scrolling line by line when pressing the directional arrow keys. However, you’ll need to tick off a hidden setting in Safari’s hidden Debug menu, which won’t affect scrolling with a trackpad or mouse.
Disable smooth scrolling in Safari for Mac
First, you must reveal Safari’s hidden Debug menu through a Terminal command. You’ll also need to give the Terminal app permission to access the whole file system on your Mac in order to execute the command to use line-by-line scrolling in Safari.
Step 1: Enable Full Disk Access for Terminal
Click the Apple menu and choose System Settings, then select Privacy & Security in the sidebar, choose Full Disk Access on the right and turn on Terminal.
Full Disk Access is turned on for the Terminal app. Image: Christian Zibreg/iDBIf Terminal is unlisted, click the + (Add) icon, navigate to the Applications/Utilities folder, and double-click the Terminal app. If asked, authenticate with Touch ID, your macOS account password, or your Apple Watch.
With that done, we can now turn on Safari’s hidden Debug menu. Open Terminal from the Applications/Utilities folder, paste the following command into the Terminal window, and press the return or enter key to execute it:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu -bool true
Step 3: Turn smooth scrolling off
Now open Safari, click Debug in the top menu bar, and select WebKit Internal Features > EventHandler driven smooth keyboard scrolling. Doing so should remove the checkmark from the option and deactivate smooth scrolling.
The arrow keys on the keyboard will no longer scroll a page continuously until releases. Instead, the page will jump a few lines at a time. To reactivate smooth scrolling, toggle the aforementioned Debug menu option so it has a checkmark. When done, you can safely hide the Debug menu again with the following Terminal command, which won’t affect your current smooth scrolling setting:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu -bool falseWhich scrolling type are you: Smooth or jumpy?
Smooth scrolling isn’t a big issue so long as you don’t use the arrow keys. But if you’re like me and prefer to scroll an article a few lines at a time using the keyboard, you may want to switch back to the good ol’ jumpy scrolling method.
I wish Apple surfaced this toggle through Safari’s settings, so anyone could change the scrolling behavior easily instead of digging through the hidden menu. Be that as it may, those who don’t like smooth scrolling at least have the option to “fix” it.
Other Safari tutorials to check out: