Window: scrollY property

The read-only scrollY property of the Window interface returns the number of pixels by which the document is currently scrolled vertically. This value is subpixel precise in modern browsers, meaning that it isn't necessarily a whole number. You can get the number of pixels the document is scrolled horizontally from the scrollX property.

Value

A double-precision floating-point value indicating the number of pixels by which the document is currently scrolled vertically from the origin, where a positive value means the content is scrolled down (to reveal more content to the bottom). In more technical terms, scrollY returns the Y coordinate of the top edge of the current viewport. If the document isn't scrolled at all top or down, then scrollY is 0. If there is no viewport, the returned value is 0. If the document is rendered on a subpixel-precise device, then the returned value is also subpixel-precise and may contain a decimal component.

Note: If you need an integer value, you can use Math.round() to round it off.

Safari responds to overscrolling by updating scrollY beyond the maximum scroll position (unless the default "bounce" effect is disabled, such as by setting overscroll-behavior to none), while Chrome and Firefox do not. For example, scrollY may be negative on Safari just by continuing to scroll up when the document is already at the top.

This property is read-only. To scroll the window to a particular place, use Window.scroll().

Examples

js
// make sure and go down to the second page
if (window.scrollY) {
  window.scroll(0, 0); // reset the scroll position to the top left of the document.
}

window.scrollByPages(1);

Notes

Use this property to check that the document hasn't already been scrolled when using relative scroll functions such as scrollBy(), scrollByLines(), or scrollByPages().

The pageYOffset property is an alias for the scrollY property. This means if you haven't re-assigned either property, window.pageYOffset === window.scrollY is always true.

Specifications

Specification
CSSOM View Module
# dom-window-scrolly

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also