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How to Change the Scroll Direction with a Keyboard Shortcut on Mac

With natural scrolling, the content moves in the same direction as your fingers. Many people like this on a trackpad, but not with the wheel of a mouse.

With Shortcutie

  1. Install Shortcutie, and open it once.
  2. In the Shortcuts app, click the add button to make a new shortcut.
  3. Add the “Set Natural Scrolling” action of Shortcutie, and set it to off. This is the shortcut for the mouse.
  4. Click the details button of the shortcut, click “Add Keyboard Shortcut”, and press the keys that you want.
  5. Make a second shortcut in the same way, but keep the action on, and give it another keyboard shortcut. This is the shortcut for the trackpad.

The change is immediate. To run the shortcuts in one click, put them in the menu bar.

For one shortcut that changes the direction each time, add the “Get Natural Scrolling” action, and below it an “If” action that checks its result, with a “Set Natural Scrolling” action for each of the two cases.

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Platform
macOS
Requires
macOS 26 or later
Released
February 2025
Privacy
No personal data collected
Updated
September 2026
Version
1.8.1
Size
9 MB
Gumroad rating
4.9/5 (26 ratings)

More about Shortcutie

Without an app

  1. Open System Settings, and click “Trackpad” in the sidebar. With a mouse, click “Mouse”.
  2. For a trackpad, click “Scroll & Zoom”.
  3. Turn “Natural scrolling” on or off.

Apple’s instructions for the trackpad and the mouse. This is enough when you always use the same device. The shortcut is for when you change between a trackpad and a mouse often, like with a MacBook that you connect to a mouse at your desk.

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