A system and methods are disclosed for automatic focus detection with relative threshold-aware cell visibility for a scrolling cell collection. The method includes identifying visible cells of a plurality of cells of a reference frame, the visible cells rendered in a graphical user interface (GUI) displaying at least a portion of the reference frame, determining, by a processing device rendering the GUI and for each visible cell of the visible cells, a distance value indicating a distance to a focus threshold in the reference frame that the visible cell has traveled since the visible cell became visible in the GUI, and modifying a behavior of the visible cells in the GUI based on the distance value of each of the visible cells.