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overflow-y

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨July 2015⁩.

The overflow-y CSS property sets what shows when content overflows a block-level element's top and bottom edges. This may be nothing, a scroll bar, or the overflow content. This property may also be set by using the overflow shorthand property.

Try it

overflow-y: visible;

overflow-y: hidden;

overflow-y: clip;

overflow-y: scroll;

overflow-y: auto;

<section class="default-example" id="default-example">
  <p id="example-element">
    Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's
    Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the
    waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth.
  </p>
</section>

#example-element {
  width: 15em;
  height: 9em;
  border: medium dotted;
  padding: 0.75em;
  text-align: left;
}

Syntax

/* Keyword values */
overflow-y: visible;
overflow-y: hidden;
overflow-y: clip;
overflow-y: scroll;
overflow-y: auto;

/* Global values */
overflow-y: inherit;
overflow-y: initial;
overflow-y: revert;
overflow-y: revert-layer;
overflow-y: unset;

The overflow-y property is specified as a single <overflow> keyword value.

If overflow-x is hidden, scroll, or auto and the overflow-y property is visible (default), the value will be implicitly computed as auto.

Values

visible: Overflow content is not clipped and may be visible outside the element's padding box at the top and bottom edges. The element box is not a scroll container.
hidden: Overflow content is clipped if necessary to fit vertically in the elements' padding box. No scroll bars are provided.
clip: Overflow content is clipped at the element's overflow clip edge that is defined using the overflow-clip-margin property. As a result, content overflows the element's padding box by the <length> value of overflow-clip-margin or by 0px if not set. The difference between clip and hidden is that the clip keyword also forbids all scrolling, including programmatic scrolling. No new formatting context is created. To establish a formatting context, use overflow: clip along with display: flow-root. The element box is not a scroll container.
scroll: Overflow content is clipped if necessary to fit vertically inside the element's padding box. Browsers display scroll bars in the vertical direction whether or not any content is actually clipped. (This prevents scroll bars from appearing or disappearing when the content changes.) Printers may still print overflowing content.
auto: Overflow content is clipped at the element's padding box, and overflow content can be scrolled into view. Unlike scroll, user agents display scroll bars only if the content is overflowing, hiding scroll bars by default. If content fits inside the element's padding box, it looks the same as with visible, but still establishes a new block-formatting context.

Note: The keyword value overlay is a legacy value alias for auto. With overlay, the scroll bars are drawn on top of the content instead of taking up space.

Formal definition

Initial value	`visible`
Applies to	Block-containers, flex containers, and grid containers
Inherited	no
Computed value	as specified, except with `visible`/`clip` computing to `auto`/`hidden` respectively if one of `overflow-x` or `overflow-y` is neither `visible` nor clip
Animation type	discrete

Formal syntax

overflow-y = 
  visible  |
  hidden   |
  clip     |
  scroll   |
  auto

Examples

Setting overflow-y behavior

HTML

<ul>
  <li>
    <code>overflow-y:hidden</code> — hides the text outside the box
    <div id="div1">
      Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
      tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
      veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea
      commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate
      velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
    </div>
  </li>

  <li>
    <code>overflow-y:scroll</code> — always adds a scrollbar
    <div id="div2">
      Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
      tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
      veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea
      commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate
      velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
    </div>
  </li>

  <li>
    <code>overflow-y:visible</code> — displays the text outside the box if
    needed
    <div id="div3">
      Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
      tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
      veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea
      commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate
      velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
    </div>
  </li>

  <li>
    <code>overflow-y:auto</code> — equivalent to <code>scroll</code>
    on most browsers
    <div id="div4">
      Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
      tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
      veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea
      commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate
      velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
    </div>
  </li>
</ul>

CSS

div {
  border: 1px solid black;
  width: 250px;
  height: 100px;
}

#div1 {
  overflow-y: hidden;
  margin-bottom: 12px;
}
#div2 {
  overflow-y: scroll;
  margin-bottom: 12px;
}
#div3 {
  overflow-y: visible;
  margin-bottom: 120px;
}
#div4 {
  overflow-y: auto;
  margin-bottom: 120px;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Overflow Module Level 3> # overflow-properties>

Browser compatibility

	Desktop					Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Opera	Safari	Chrome Android	Firefox for Android	Opera Android	Safari on IOS	Samsung Internet	WebView Android	WebView on iOS
`overflow-y`	1	12	3.5	9.5	3	18	4	14	1	1.0	4.4	1
`auto`	115	12	3.5112	1515	3 6 Before Safari 12.1, `overlay` only had an effect on legacy scrollbars on macOS. Since Safari 12.1, it is parsed as `auto`.	18100	4112	1469	2 6 Before Safari on iOS 12.1, `overlay` only had an effect on legacy scrollbars on macOS. Since Safari on iOS 12.1, it is parsed as `auto`.	1.019.0	4.4100	2 6 Before WebView on iOS 12.1, `overlay` only had an effect on legacy scrollbars on macOS. Since WebView on iOS 12.1, it is parsed as `auto`.
`clip`	90	90	813.5–81	76	16	90	814–81	64	16	15.0	90	16
`hidden`	1	12	3.5	15	3	18	4	14	2	1.0	4.4	2
`scroll`	1	12	3.5	15	3	18	4	14	2	1.0	4.4	2
`visible`	1	12	3.5	15	3	18	4	14	2	1.0	4.4	2