How to Customize the Scrollbar Style in Firefox

Tired of seeing the same old scrollbar on your favorite browser? Here's how you can customize it easily.

Mozilla Firefox is among the most customizable browsers available. It includes numerous built-in toolbars, themes, New Tab page, tabs, and browsing customization options. There are also many customization extensions available for Firefox.

However, Firefox doesn't include any standard scrollbar customization options within its Settings tab. Nevertheless, you can still change that browser's scrollbar style to different alternatives within the browser's about:config (Advanced Preferences) menu. This is how you can customize Firefox's scrollbar style by changing a hidden flag on Firefox's Advanced Preferences tab.

How to Change Firefox's Scrollbar Style via the About:Config Page

Firefox (version 97) has five alternative default scrollbar styles to match whatever platform you're utilizing the browser on. For example, Windows 11 has a default minimal form native overlay scrollbar style that only displays up/down arrow buttons when you place the cursor at the top or bottom of the bar. Firefox will use the same scrollbar style if you're running Microsoft's latest desktop operating system.

Read also: Firefox 97 Has Arrived: Here's What's New, Changed, and Fixed

However, Firefox's scrollbar style isn't the same in Windows 10. By default, Firefox has a wider scrollbar that always shows its up/down buttons when used in that platform. That scrollbar matches Windows 10's default scrollbar theme.

Firefox has five different scrollbars. Aside from the Windows versions, it has additional styles for Mac OS, Android, and GTX. So if you're utilizing Firefox on a Mac OS or Android device, it will show the corresponding scrollbar. Nevertheless, you can change Mozilla Firefox's scrollbar to one of those four alternatives by adjusting the value of the scrollbar.style preference setting as follows.

1. First, launch the Firefox browser.
2. Type about:config in Firefox's URL bar, and press the Enter key.

3. Click the Accept the Risk and Continue button on the warning prompt.

   
4. Enter widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style in the search preference name box.
5. Press the Return or Enter key to find the setting.

6. Click the Edit (pencil) button on the right side of the widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style setting.

   
7. Delete the current 0 value for the default OS style scrollbar.

8. Then input the value 1 (Mac OS X), 2 (GTX), 3 (Android), 4 (Windows 10), or 5 (Windows 11) in the widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style box for the scrollbar style you want to change to. For example, enter 4 to change the scrollbar to the default Windows 10 design.

   
9. Click the Save button on the right side of the widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style setting to apply.

Now, you can check out Firefox's new scrollbar style. Enter a keyword in the browser's URL bar and press Return to view the search result's page. Then you can scroll up and down the search page with the browser's new scrollbar. If you entered 1 for the widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style setting, Firefox will have a sleeker, rounded scrollbar like the one shown below.

The default value for Firefox's scrollbar style is 0, which sets it to match your platform. You can restore the original default setting by clicking Edit and entering 0 in the value box for the widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style option.

To customize Firefox's scrollbar more, check out Custom Scrollbars. Custom Scrollbars is a Firefox and Google Chrome extension with which you can change the scrollbar's color scheme, width, roundness, and buttons. The MUO guide linked below provides details for how to utilize that extension.

Download: Custom Scrollbars for Firefox (Free)

Change Firefox's Scrollbar Style to One of Your Choosing

The widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style flag is a great, albeit hidden, Firefox customization setting. With this, you can pick a different scrollbar style than the one your system uses by default. It's one of the many hidden configuration options in Mozilla Firefox's Advanced Preferences tab. With this menu, you can choose whatever style suits you best.

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