How to change my mouse wheel scroll rate?

Question

I'm using Chrome, and the scroll rate is like 3 lines, and it's painfully slow. My finger gets tired really quickly on long pages. System → Preferences → Mouse lacks any scroll wheel configuration options.

Solution 1

The fix for me for this (I had it for months) was pretty surreal and like most folks I didn't believe it until I did it:

Some MS mice have a scrollwheel bug.

Try unplugging the USB cable / dongle then plug back in.

Also, I noticed that if you have the dongle plugged in to the computer and the mouse has an on-off mechanism then you can just turn the mouse off and back on. That resets the data link between the mouse and dongle.

:)

Solution 2

I wanted to do this too, and I figure I most often want to do it in a web browser (where else do you really mouse-wheel scroll a great deal?)

For Google Chrome

One can no longer change the scroll amount with command line parameters. However, you can use this add-on extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromium-wheel-smooth-scr/khpcanbeojalbkpgpmjpdkjnkfcgfkhb?utm_source=plus

For Firefox

1. In the url field, type about:config.

2. Search for the following settings and change their values as desired:

   mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.enabled
   mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.horizontal.factor
   mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.vertical.factor
   

Solution 3

The option to configure mouse wheel speed in chrome seems to have been removed, however the Chromium Wheel Smooth Scroller extension seems to work really well.

Solution 4

From triaged bug #619403 on mouse-wheel acceleration against xorg-server with a link to this patch you can see there is work in progress.

In addition there is a Wiki on how to configure input devices that gives you ideas on what is possible at present:

Use xinput to show setting of your input devices:

xinput --list gives you information on your hardware xinput query-state "name of device" lists the current settings (including mouse wheel!)

Only after you know how your mouse is set up you are able to change these setting using xinput with the option appropriate for your device.

Solution 5

This was also annoying me.

This following is one option quoted verbatim from a comment here

sudo apt-get install imwheel

place the following in ~/.imwheelrc

"^google-chrome$"
None, Up, Button4, 2
None, Down, Button5, 2

(replace 2 by the number you want to multiply scrolling by)

$ imwheel

• I added imwheel to my startup applications
• I found the mutliplier 2 to be about right.

Update: I found that the following option actually disabled Ctrl+Scroll to zoom, which I quite like.

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Comments

[user6465]

how do you apply this patch?

[Takkat]

If not for testing or contributing it is generally not a good idea to patch Xorg server. If you don't know exactly what you're doing and something goes wrong you may end up with a non-responsive system.

[Sheldon]

Another side-effect is that this affects all mouse wheel events, not just scrolling. E.g. if you ever use the mouse wheel to change tabs this will ruin that functionality :)

[ttnphns]

On firefox 17 and up, "mousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlines" and "mousewheel.withnokey.numlines" are both deprecated. The new settings' names is: "mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.enabled", "mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.horizonta‌​l.factor" and "mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.vertical.‌​factor". You can see it here: bitbucket.org/cat_in_136/configuration-mania/issue/101/…

[DarenW]

Fixed it for me. My scroll rate was way too fast, not too slow, but same solution. I have a KVM switch to go between a Ubuntu machine and Windows 7. The problem returns every time I KVM back to the Ubuntu. Give the mouse USB doodad few seconds of freedom, and the problem is gone.

[Michael Butler]

According to a comment below, --scroll-pixels is deprecated and may not be available for chrome anymore. in that case, see this extension: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromium-wheel-smooth-scr/‌​…

[Hery]

I can't believe it. This fixes it for me as well.

[rlib]

Fixed MS Wireless Mobile Mouse 1000, FCC ID: c3k1452 model 1452

[nha]

+1 I was skeptic too, but it works. When in doubt with MS, reboot.

[lepe]

In my case, just turning on and off my mouse worked.

[Moshe Katz]

Worked for me with a Logitech M705 Marathon Mouse.

[oerdnj]

Gosh, thank you! (New Wireless MS Natural Keyboard & Mouse)

[Anwar]

This answer don't fit with general situation

[Michael Durrant]

Thus your downvote. The many up-voters might diagreee but that's fine. Everyone gets one vote !

[SpiRail]

works for Microsoft Scuplt economical mouse. Would be nice to know if something specific causes this and if the reconnect can be automated somehow so i don't have to reach under the desk.

[thorne51]

Microsoft Mobile Mouse 4000 here. On/Off switch didn't work but unplugging the dongle for a couple of seconds did the trick. Weird indeed

[Steven C. Howell]

Have a look at this similar post: askubuntu.com/a/621140/385212, it demonstrates how to still use Ctrl+Scroll to zoom, etc.

[Jeff Puckett]

this doesn't seem to work any longer :(

[Frank Nocke]

For the impatient, regarding the Chromium Smooth Scroller: Settings that worked well for me (trusting you want things faster than default, too): Step Size: 100, Smoothness (forepart): 0, Smoothness: 68, Acc Sensitivity: 115 and (much further down): Bouncy Edge: 0 (irritating gimmick imho)

[Jamie Hutber]

This worked in chrome, however any other application it now selects the text rather than scrolling the window :(

[Frank Nocke]

Why does that plugin „require“ full access rights to every web page I read?

[Frank Nocke]

Thanks for the startup applications advice. I was digging around „upstart“ which of course is way to early in the process...

[sabujp]

It's matching something in the window title so it needs to be "Google Chrome", not sure if it's case sensitive but I assume it is and also don't limit your window title regex with ^ and $. I think both google-chrome and imwheel need to be restarted every time there's a change in your imwheel config. You can get your window title by using "xwininfo" and clicking on the window. Also I actually found that a factor of 3 is better than 2 but 4 was too fast.

[Bert Hekman]

I've created a simple chrome extension called Scroll Speed in which you can set the scroll factor. Can be found here: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scroll-speed/… It has much better performance than the "smooth scroll" extensions I've tried to fix this problem.

[Marco Massenzio]

FWIW this works just fine (Ubuntu 20.04), but it needs to use imwheel -kill to enable the changes (just running imwheel will have no effect). I use .* as the selector.