Natural scrolling on the trackpad, reversed on the mouse

Updated September 2026

You like natural scrolling on the trackpad. On a wheel mouse the same setting feels backwards. macOS gives you one switch for both, so fixing one breaks the other. Here is how to have it both ways, and what you can already change without installing anything.

The short answer

• Leave Natural Scrolling switched on in System Settings. Do not turn it off — that is what breaks the trackpad.
• Use a small app to flip the mouse only, such as Mouse Scroll, leaving the system setting alone.
• Both devices end up right. The trackpad behaves the way macOS intends, and the wheel goes the other way.

Most people try this the other way round. They turn Natural Scrolling off to fix the mouse, then look for a way to fix the trackpad afterwards. That is the same problem again with an extra app in the middle. Leave the system setting on and change only the wheel.

Step by step

1. Leave Natural Scrolling on. In System Settings, under Mouse or Trackpad, leave the box ticked. You are not going to touch this again.
2. Install an app that flips mice only. It watches each scroll as it happens and reverses the ones that came from a wheel.
3. Grant Accessibility permission. This is the only way macOS lets an app change a scroll while it happens, so every app of this kind asks for it.
4. Switch on inversion for Mice, and leave Trackpads alone. Both devices now scroll the way you want, and the system setting was never changed.

What macOS will and will not split

Try the built-in settings first. macOS lets you change more per device than most guides admit, and scroll direction is the only thing it will not separate.

The reason direction cannot be split is that there is only one setting underneath both checkboxes. macOS keeps it in a single system-wide preference called com.apple.swipescrolldirection. System Settings shows it twice, but both boxes read and write the same value, so changing either one changes the other at the same moment.

Tips

If it is really speed you want, stop here

If your complaint is that the wheel moves too far or not far enough, that is scroll speed, not direction. macOS already gives you a separate speed slider for the mouse and for the trackpad, under Accessibility, and it costs nothing. No extra app is needed for that at all.

A Magic Mouse counts as a trackpad

A wheel mouse sends one small click of scroll at a time. A trackpad sends a smooth stream instead, tagged with the moment your fingers land and lift. A Magic Mouse sends the smooth kind, so apps that sort devices by what the scrolling looks like put it with trackpads. Switch on inversion for Trackpads and it will follow.

Check the system setting before you blame the app

If scrolling is wrong on both devices at once, the odds are the macOS switch got toggled rather than the app misbehaving. Open System Settings, confirm Natural Scrolling is still on, and only then look at anything else.

Common problems

Both devices are now backwards

This is the classic one, and it means Natural Scrolling was switched off at some point. Turn it back on. Your trackpad returns to normal immediately, and the app carries on flipping the mouse as before. You should never need to change that system setting again.

Nothing changes when I change a setting

Two apps are probably editing the same scroll and cancelling each other out, or a macOS update has cleared Accessibility permission and left the app running but powerless. Check the permission first, because it takes ten seconds. Both causes are covered in Mac scrolling stopped working after installing an app.

This trips up enough people that it is a recurring thread on Apple's own forums, where the answer is always the same: macOS has no per-device option. See Apple Support Communities: setting scroll direction independently for mouse and trackpad.

More: Mouse Scroll overview · When scrolling stops working · All guides