How to keep editor scrollbar from selecting text?
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I installed R2023a on a new mac, and now this very annoying new behavior: if I grab the scrollbar to drag up or down the script, it selects all the text between start and end scrolling points. This can't be intended, how to stop it?
Answers (1)
Vishnu
on 12 Jul 2023
0 votes
You might have enabled "Scroll Selection", to disable it, follow these steps:
- Go to the "Home" tab in the MATLAB toolbar.
- Click on "Preferences" to open the Preferences dialog.
- In the Preferences dialog, select "Editor/Debugger" from the left-hand side panel.
- Under the "Editor" section, click on "Scrolling" to expand the options.
- Uncheck the box next to "Scroll Selection" to disable this feature.
- Click "Apply" and then "OK" to save the changes and close the Preferences dialog.
5 Comments
andrew haun
on 12 Jul 2023
Moved: Voss
on 12 Jul 2023
Joshua Diamond
on 5 Dec 2023
andrew haun
on 6 Dec 2023
TrevorR
on 21 Aug 2025
@andrew haun Thanks that worked
Walter Roberson
on 21 Aug 2025
Edited: Walter Roberson
on 21 Aug 2025
This is what the preferences section looks like on MATLAB R2023a for MacOS:

As you can see, the Editor section of Editor/Debugger has no "Scrolling" or "Scroll Selection"
The Windows R2023a preferences are the same, just with slightly different decorations.
I do not recall there ever having been a "Scroll Selection" preference.
I think you used an AI system to answer, without checking the validity of the answer yourself.
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