Element: scrollTo() method

Syntax

scrollTo(xCoord, yCoord)
scrollTo(options)

Parameters

xCoord

The x-coordinate of the element's scrollable content that you want the left edge of the element's scrollport to scroll to.

yCoord

The y-coordinate of the element's scrollable content that you want the top edge of the element's scrollport to scroll to.

options

An object containing the following properties:

top Optional

The y-coordinate of the element's scrollable content that you want the top edge of the element's scrollport to scroll to. This is the same as the yCoord parameter.

left Optional

The x-coordinate of the element's scrollable content that you want the left edge of the element's scrollport to scroll to. This is the same as the xCoord parameter.

behavior Optional

Determines whether scrolling is instant or animates smoothly. This option is a string that must take one of the following values:

• smooth: The scrolling animates smoothly.
• instant: The scrolling happens instantly in a single jump.
• auto: The scroll behavior is determined by the computed value of the scroll-behavior CSS property on the element.

If omitted, behavior defaults to auto.

Return value

A Promise that fulfills with an object containing the following property:

interrupted

A boolean value indicating whether the scrolling operation was interrupted (true) or not (false). Such an interruption typically happens when a programmatic scroll is ongoing, and another programmatic scroll is initiated on the same element before the first one finishes.

Examples

Basic usage

element.scrollTo(0, 1000);

Using options:

element.scrollTo({
  top: 100,
  left: 100,
  behavior: "smooth",
});

Responding to the end of the scroll

Our element methods demo (see source code) demonstrates how the promise return value of scrollTo() can be used to respond to the end of a scrolling operation. This technique is mostly useful in cases where the scrolling occurs smoothly over time (achieved by setting the behavior option to smooth, or by setting the scrolling element's scroll-behavior property to smooth).

HTML

Our HTML includes a <section> element containing several paragraphs of content and a <div> element toolbar containing <button> elements that trigger various scrolling operations on the <section>.

<div>
  <button class="scroll">scroll() to 1000</button>
  <button class="scrollto">scrollTo() top</button>
  <button class="scrollby">scrollBy() 200</button>
  <button class="scrollintoview">Scroll last &lt;p&gt; into view</button>
</div>

<section>...</section>

CSS

We give the <section> element a fixed height and an overflow-y value of scroll so that it scrolls vertically, and set its scroll-behavior property to smooth so that any scroll operations are animated smoothly over time rather than instantly.

section {
  border: 1px solid black;
  padding: 20px;
  margin-top: 60px;
  height: 500px;
  overflow-y: scroll;
  scroll-behavior: smooth;
}

We also create two class selectors; when a fade-out or fade-in class is applied to an element, an animation is applied so that it smoothly fades out or in, respectively. We also define @keyframes blocks to define the required opacity changes for those animations.

.fade-out {
  animation: fade-out 0.3s linear both;
}

.fade-in {
  animation: fade-in 0.3s linear both;
}

@keyframes fade-out {
  from {
    opacity: 1;
  }

  to {
    opacity: 0;
  }
}

@keyframes fade-in {
  from {
    opacity: 0;
  }

  to {
    opacity: 1;
  }
}

The rest of the CSS is not shown, for brevity.

JavaScript

We start by grabbing references to the <button> that runs the scrollTo() operation, the toolbar <div>, and the scrolling <section>:

const scrollToBtn = document.querySelector(".scrollto");
const toolbar = document.querySelector("div");
const section = document.querySelector("section");

Next, we define a function called isInterrupted(), designed to run in response to a scroll operation finishing, which takes a boolean interrupted value as a parameter. It logs a message to the console to say that scrolling is finished and indicate whether the operation was interrupted (interrupted is true) or not. In addition, if interrupted is true, it calls an alert() to clearly indicate the interruption.

function isInterrupted(interrupted) {
  console.log(`Scroll finished;${interrupted ? " " : " not "}interrupted`);
  if (interrupted) {
    alert("Scroll interrupted!");
  }
}

When the button is clicked, we immediately apply the fade-out class to the toolbar, causing it to fade out. We then run scrollTo(0, 0) on the <section> to scroll its content to the top, awaiting its promise resolution as we do so and storing the result in a constant. When the promise has resolved, we call isInterrupted() to report that the scroll operation has finished and whether it was interrupted. Finally, we apply the fade-in class to the toolbar, causing it to fade back in again.

scrollToBtn.addEventListener("click", async () => {
  toolbar.className = "fade-out";
  const result = await section.scrollTo(0, 0);
  isInterrupted(result.interrupted);
  toolbar.className = "fade-in";
});

The code not relevant to scrollTo() is not shown, for brevity.

Result

Click the buttons to see the scrolling behavior. Note how the toolbar fades out when a button is pressed, and fades in again once the smooth scrolling is finished. Also try pressing one button and then quickly pressing another button before the first scrolling operation has finished. Note how, in these cases, the scrolling is reported as interrupted.

You can also load the demo in a separate tab and view the source code.

Aside on feature detection

If you run this example in a browser that doesn't support promise-returning scroll operations, the scroll operations are still smooth, but the toolbar doesn't fade out and then fade back in once the operation is finished. The feature detection is handled by a function called supportsScrollPromises(), which runs a scroll operation and tests whether its return value is a promise:

function supportsScrollPromises() {
  const test = section.scroll(0, 0);
  return test instanceof Promise;
}

Check out the source code to see how the feature detection is used.

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• Element.scrollTop, Element.scrollLeft
• Window.scrollTo()