I bought 3 of these and 2 of them work very nicely. You can tug on the handle and it will retract to the highest position - tug again and it will stay where you place it. The third one has a sluggish spring mechanism and only retracts a few inches on its own. You have to push it a little bit at a time to coax it upward. The blackout fabric is pretty good, but the installation we did on the outside of the window frame means that quite a bit of light leaks around the sides because it's sticking out about 2 inches from the wall / window frame. They look very neat and tidy from the outside of the house too.