Scrollbar almost invisible in editor with many diffs

Support Bug Reports
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

In cases where a file is being displayed in the Cursor IDE with many diffs, the scrollbar / scroll positioner becomes almost invisible, since it’s been overlaid on the red / green diff display, not displayed alongside it.

The file editor scrollbar appears to be a custom scrollbar design that differs from the one used by the OS itself, or other scrollbars in the IDE (e.g. the one in the agent window).

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Open a file in the editor that has many diffs.
  2. Attempt to find the scrollbar / scroll positioner (have fun…)

Since there may be an interaction with the OS here, I note that I’m using Linux Mint 22.1 Xia (Cinnamon).

Expected Behavior

  • The scrollbar should be a discrete element, not overlaid on top of dense diff information.
  • The scrollbar should be relatively prominent, and the scroll positioner block should be easy to find, not almost completely transparent (I admit that I miss the old days of ‘real’ scrollbars from the likes of Apple System 7 and CDE…)

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Screenshot from 2026-06-22 08-36-42.png

Operating System

Linux

Version Information

Version: 3.8.11
VS Code Extension API: 1.105.1
Commit: e56ad3440df06d22ca7501e65fd518e905486ef0
Date: 2026-06-18T01:40:18.333Z
Layout: editor
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 40.10.3
Chromium: 144.0.7559.236
Node.js: 24.15.0
V8: 14.4.258.32-electron.0
xterm.js: 6.1.0-beta.256
OS: Linux x64 6.8.0-124-generic

For AI issues: which model did you use?

N/A

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

7

Thanks for the detailed write-up and screenshot. You’re right that once a file has a lot of changes, the scrollbar thumb gets lost in the sea of red and green.

Here’s what’s going on: the editor packs the diff markers (the red/green) and the scroll handle into the same narrow lane on the right, and the handle is intentionally semi-transparent. With a dense diff, the markers win and the handle nearly vanishes.

The good news is you can fix this in a few seconds with a setting. Open the Command Palette and run Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON), then add the snippets below (or ask Cursor to add them for you)

Recommended fix — make the handle bigger and more solid**.** This keeps the colored diff overview (handy for seeing where your changes are at a glance) and just makes the scroll handle stand out on top of it:

{
  "editor.scrollbar.verticalScrollbarSize": 18,
  "workbench.colorCustomizations": {
    "scrollbarSlider.background": "#888888cc",
    "scrollbarSlider.hoverBackground": "#aaaaaaee",
    "scrollbarSlider.activeBackground": "#ccccccff"
  }
}

Here’s what after looks like for me:

SCR-20260622-pkak
SCR-20260622-pkak431×539 1.38 KB

It’s kind of comically large but you get the idea. Much easier to see!

8

Thanks, @kevinn ! This is very helpful and I’ll try it out. I didn’t realize that it was possible to customize the IDE UI in this manner.