Smooth scrolling in Chrome is controlled by a flag. On Windows, Linux, ChromeOS and Android, copy this address, paste it into Chrome’s address bar and press Enter:
chrome://flags/#smooth-scrolling
- Chrome opens its Experiments page and highlights the Smooth Scrolling flag. Chrome describes it as: “Animate smoothly when scrolling page content.”
- Open the menu next to the flag and choose Enabled to turn the scrolling animation on, or Disabled to turn it off. Default leaves the choice to Chrome.
- Click Relaunch. The change takes effect after Chrome restarts.
Smooth scrolling on a Mac, iPhone or iPad
Chrome does not offer this flag on a Mac. Chrome lists the Smooth Scrolling flag for Windows, Linux, ChromeOS and Android only, and in Chrome on a Mac it sits on the Unavailable tab of chrome://flags with the note “Not available on your platform.” iPhone and iPad are not in the flag’s platform list either. Older guides that tell Mac users to search the flags page for “smooth scrolling” will not find anything to change.
If scrolling is jerky or slow
The flag only changes whether scrolling is animated. It does not make a slow page faster. If pages stutter when you scroll:
- Update Chrome. Our guide to updating Chrome shows how on every device.
- Undo flag changes. If scrolling got worse after you changed any flag, open
chrome://flags, click Reset all, then Relaunch. Every flag goes back to Default. - Test without extensions. Open
chrome://extensions, turn your extensions off, and turn them back on one at a time to see whether one of them is involved.
Other scrolling flags
The Overlay Scrollbars flag changes how scrollbars look rather than how the page moves. It is covered, with the exact options Chrome offers, in our list of Chrome flags worth knowing about. For how flags work in general, why one can disappear, and what Google warns about them, see our guide to chrome://flags.