This brief tutorial will show you how to make the scroll bars wider or more narrow in all Windows programs.

There are a number of reasons why you may want to change the width of the scrollbars in Windows. If you have a touchscreen device, making them a bit wider can help you “grab” them. If you’re a power user and rarely click the scrollbars (you use your mouse’s scroll wheel etc) – you can regain some “screen real estate” by making them more narrow. Whatever your reason, here’s how to change their width.

1. Start out by right-clicking a blank area on your Desktop. Select Properties from the pop-up menu.



2. Select the Appearance tab at the top of the Display Properties screen, and then click the Advanced button in the bottom right-corner of the window.



3. Click the “down arrow” in the Items: area. A long list of “items” will appear. Select Scrollbar from that list.



4. The default size for the scrollbars is 17. If you want to increase the size of your scrollbars, choose a higher number. If you want to decrease the size of the scrollbars, choose a smaller number.



5. Click OK after you’ve made the change.



6. You’ll be taken back to the Appearance tab of the Display Properties. On this screen, click the Apply button. After a few moments, your scroll bars will take on their new size.



7. Below is a screenshot of an enlarged scroll bar (30px instead of 17px).



8. And here’s a screenshot of a scrollbar that I’ve decreased in size – down to 4px.



9. If you’re unhappy with the results, just repeat the process until you find a size you like. And if you decide you want to go back to the default, just set the size to 17. That’s it!