Mac OS X scrolling is jumpy

Question

When I scroll in Mac OS X, I have to turn the mouse wheel several times where the scrolling on the computer is very small, and then at the end it jumps a huge distance. This doesn't happen on every app. Firefox has a plugin called SmoothWheel that prevents it from happening, but I'd like to know how I can do it on other apps as well. Does anyone know? Is there a way?

Solution 1

Two things come to mind:

1. You can try playing with the mouse scrolling setting in system preferences (but you've already tried this, right?)
2. See if there are mouse drivers made for your specific mouse by the manufacturer. For example, Logitech has mouse drivers for their products in many cases that give more refined scrolling (and other) control.

Solution 2

I had the same issue and just discovered a fix in this SU post. Basically the jumpyness is caused by the new scroll acceleration, introduced in Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8). User Jfdno created an app which disables it and you can find a fork of it on github: https://github.com/davekeck/DisableExtremeScrollAcceleration

Solution 3

I installed this: https://mos.caldis.me/

Seems to be the easiest option. Just have to change the inverse setting back to normal.

I also use Logitech options and doesn't seem to interfere with it.

Comments

[Admin]

What mouse are you using? Are you using a proprietary mouse driver, say from the manufacturer, or something like USB Overdrive? Is this a new mouse? If not, when did the behavior start, and had you recently changed or installed anything?

[Admin]

Possible duplicate of Disabling scroll wheel acceleration on OS X Mavericks?

[fixer1234]

When you find that a question is answered by an answer to another question on the site, consider flagging the question as a possible duplicate. It makes it easier for people to find answers. Thanks.

[seren]

Thanks. i don't have quite enough reputation yet to flag a question as a duplicate, but I'll follow your suggestion in the future.

[fixer1234]

Looks like the future has arrived. :-)

[seren]

Hehe, that was fast. :) I tried flagging it, but there doesn't seem to be a "duplicate" option. Reading further, I see that I need 50 rep to "flag to close". Ahh, well. Soon hopefully.

[Dkong]

This works really nicely for me (Catalina). Thank you!