With Apple’s new releases of OS X focusing on making the Mac operating system more similar to iOS, several changes have been made to the user interface of the OS. One is the way that scrollbars work. iOS users will recall that when scrolling through content such as a website or a block of text on an app, the scrollbars display only when the content is actually scrolling, and fades away once the content is nonmoving once more. With Apple’s release of the latest OS X system, Lion, scrollbars work the same way. However, some users may wish (as I do)  to keep the scrollbars permanently displayed, and here’s the tutorial that teaches you how to do it.

Luckily, there’s no Terminal coding and tweaking required, as there is in some of our other tutorials. Apple has (fortunately) built this toggle setting right into, you guessed it, the Settings app on your Mac. Launch the settings app and follow the easy instructions below:

1. After launching the settings app, click the General button under the “Personal” section.
2. A screen similar to the one below should appear:
   
3. The scrollbar setting section is highlighted in the screenshot above. If you wish to always show scrollbars, just click the “Always”button. If you wish to mimic the way scrolling works in iOS, you can choose the “When Scrolling” option.

You can go back and change these settings to your preference whenever you want. That’s it!

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