Linux: Make Scrollbar Always Visible

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

Here's how to always make Ubuntu's scrollbar visible. (make its width bigger)

ubuntu linux overlay scrollbar 2016-01-14 48358
Ubuntu overlay scrollbar. Visible only when you mouse over. Looks neat, but hard to use.
linux classic scrollbar 80817
classic scrollbar

Change to Classic Scrollbar

Ubuntu 16

Good solution as of 2017-03-11

create a file at:

~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css

Copy and paste the following to the file:

.scrollbar {
  -GtkScrollbar-has-backward-stepper: true;
  -GtkScrollbar-has-forward-stepper: true;
  -GtkRange-slider-width: 20;
  -GtkRange-stepper-size: 20;
}

Restart the app to see the change.

source askubuntu

Ubuntu 12.10, or 14.04

In Ubuntu 12.10, or 14.04, or later, do:

# set the classic scrollbar style
gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal

Before Ubuntu 12.10

To go back to standard scrollbar, do:

# set the classic scrollbar style
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface ubuntu-overlay-scrollbars false

Restart the app to see the new setting.

You can also remove the library.

# remove ubuntu new overlay scrollbar
sudo apt-get remove overlay-scrollbar liboverlay-scrollbar-0.2-0 liboverlay-scrollbar3-0.2-0

Linux Misc