Div height 100% and expands to fit content [duplicate]

Question

I have a div element on my page with its height set to 100%. The height of the body is also set to 100%. The inner div has a background and all that and is different from the body background. This works for making the div height 100% of the browser screen height, but the problem is I have content inside that div that extends vertically beyond the browser screen height. When I scroll down, the div ends at the point at which you had to begin scrolling the page, but the content overflows beyond that. How do I make the div always go all the way to the bottom to fit the inner content?

Here's a simplification of my CSS:

body {
    height:100%;
    background:red;
}

#some_div {
    height:100%;
    background:black;
}

Once I scroll the page, the blackness ends and the content flows onto the red background. It doesn't seem to matter whether I set the positon to relative or absolute on the #some_div, the problem occurs either way. The content inside the #some_div is mostly absolutely positioned, and it is dynamically generated from a database so its height can't be known in advance.

Edit: Here is a screenshot of the problem:

Bangka

This was asked a few weeks ago. I'll see if I can find that question. I believe I commented on it. edit I believe your question is similar to this: #9398813 – Organize

please your code for better understanding – Menadione

can you post your full code pls – Byandby

You want all my thousands of lines of php code, css and javascript? I posted the portion of css that was relevant to the question... – Bangka

NECROPOST IS A GO: setting the overflow property generally fixes issues like these where content inside a div is stretching past it (overflow: hidden;, overflow: scroll;, etc). – Ewen

#1230854 – Empennage

Answer 1

Here is what you should do in the CSS style, on the main div

display: block;
overflow: auto;

And do not touch height

Urina

Worked great. I needed to add height: 100% to html, body and the container div to make it fill the height when there was not enough content though. – Crotchety

amazing solution but you can actually touch the height if the objetive is something like a responsive window fitting – Chyack

Is the display: block; needed? Divs are already block-level elements. – Discombobulate

it adds an inner scrollbar for me (both horizontal and vertical) – Quintinquintina

If you still get the parent element a little bit taller than the children elements, then check for any extra spaces and/or  , remove them. Also try to adjust the line-height. For example I've put line-height: 0, because I didn't need text, just to show an image. – Enroot

DON'T touch height! I had "height: auto" and it messed up my expanding div. removed it and everything worked great – Kriskrischer

Instead of div expanding, I get a scrollbar. Is there a fix to this? – Phoenix

When I set overflow: auto; it just sets the height of my content to zero and it becomes invisible. – Sites

Great for <fieldset> ( <div> <label> ... ) + "stacks" as well. Every time a label wrapped, it skewed the position of the next label (even in its own div!) without this. I'm sure I'm "doing HTML + CSS wrong", but I do the best I can and this was VERY helpful. – Lobbyist

@NathanH I also got an unwanted scrollbar that can be hidden with overflow: hidden; – Dagostino

Answer 2

Set the height to auto and min-height to 100%. This should solve it for most browsers.

body {
  position: relative;
  height: auto;
  min-height: 100% !important;
}

Nitride

IMO, this answers the question "How do I make the div always go all the way to the bottom to fit the inner content?" better than the currently marked answer, which simply turns on overflow-scrolling rather than ensuring the div/body expands to fit its content. +1 – Kissel

Worked for my case. Thx! – Prurigo

It may be worth noting that for some reason, it doesn't work if height is 100% and min-height is auto - I would expect these to be interchangeable in this case, but looks like they aren't. – Stopped

sweet solution. – Ermey

alternative for min-height:100% : you can use min-height:92% or some percentage to fit the container to the screen. This worked in my case. – Jequirity

I had to change to min-height: 100vh -> parend div color resizes with browser // child div grows with content and no overflow into parent. No extra scrollbars :) – Felloe

Answer 3

#some_div {    
  height: fit-content;
}

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/fit-content

Brookweed

This should have more upvotes. – Clathrate

Easy solution and does not have scrollbars! Well done! – Ovi

The best and modern solution, no scrollbar as mentioned above. Thanks! – Goudy

Answer 4

Usually this problem arises when the Child elements of a Parent Div are floated. Here is the Latest Solution of the problem:

In your CSS file write the following class called .clearfix along with the pseudo selector :after

.clearfix:after {
content: "";
display: table;
clear: both;
}

Then, in your HTML, add the .clearfix class to your parent Div. For example:

<div class="clearfix">
    <div></div>
    <div></div>
</div>

It should work always. You can call the class name as .group instead of .clearfix , as it will make the code more semantic. Note that, it is Not necessary to add the dot or even a space in the value of Content between the double quotation "". Also, overflow: auto; might solve the problem but it causes other problems like showing the scroll-bar and is not recommended.

Source: Blog of Lisa Catalano and Chris Coyier

Derayne

how do you set a default height if you do it this way ? My textarea is like one line height before you type anything. – Vest

Answer 5

This question may be old, but it deserves an update. Here is another way to do that:

#yourdiv {
    display: flex;
    width:100%;
    height:100%;
}

Alleyne

If you're going to post on an old question, using current values (AKA no prefixes on flex) is recommended. – Pro

Sorry I don't know what you are talking about. – Alleyne

Flex prefixes haven't been necessary for quite a while now. – Pro

And which ones are? – Alleyne

this should be the right answer, without affecting other divs and without !important anywhere. – Separable

Answer 6

If you just leave the height: 100% and use display:block; the div will take as much space as the content inside the div. This way all the text will stay in the black background.

Valvule

Where did you use display: block? I don't see that in your question. – Snowball

I added it to #some_div after Ronnie suggested it, but it didn't fix the problem. – Bangka

Could you try adding float: none; to the same #some_div css – Valvule

Instead of float: none;, use clear:both;. It does the same thing but is more cross-browser, @Valvule – Whitener

Answer 7

Try this:

body { 
    min-height:100%; 
    background:red; 
} 

#some_div {
    min-height:100%; 
    background:black; 
} 

IE6 and earlier versions do not support the min-height property.

I think the problem is that when you tell the body to have a height of 100%, it's background can only be as tall as the hieght of one browser "viewport" (the viewing area that excludes the browsers toolbars & statusbars & menubars and the window edges). If the content is taller than one viewport, it will overflow the height devoted to the background.

This min-height property on the body should FORCE the background to be at least as tall as one viewport if your content does not fill one whole page down to the bottom, yet it should also let it grow downwards to encompass more interior content.

Shortterm

Answer 8

use flex

.parent{
    display: flex
}

.fit-parent{
    display: flex;
    flex-grow: 1
}

Flashboard

Answer 9

Old question, but in my case i found using position:fixed solved it for me. My situation might have been a little different though. I had an overlayed semi transparent div with a loading animation in it that I needed displayed while the page was loading. So using height:auto / 100% or min-height: 100% both filled the window but not the off-screen area. Using position:fixed made this overlay scroll with the user, so it always covered the visible area and kept my preloading animation centred on the screen.

Expressman

Answer 10

In my case it worked only with:

height: auto;

You don't need to put display: block.

Herwig

Answer 11

Modern browsers support the "viewport height" unit. This will expand the div to the available viewport height. I find it more reliable than any other approach.

#some_div {
    height: 100vh;
    background: black;
}

Irrespective

Answer 12

Ok, I tried something like this:

body (normal)

#MainDiv { 
  /* where all the content goes */
  display: table;
  overflow-y: auto;
}

It's not the exact way to write it, but if you make the main div display as a table, it expands and then I implemented scroll bars.

Bushelman

Answer 13

Just add these two line in your css id #some_div

display: block;
overflow: auto;

After that you will get what your are looking for !

Medicine

Answer 14

OVERLAY WITHOUT POSITION:FIXED

A really cool way I've figured this out for a recent menu was setting the body to:

position: relative

and set your wrapper class like this:

#overlaywrapper {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    background: #00000080;
    z-index: 100;
}

This means that you don't have to set position fixed and can still allow for scrolling. I've used this for overlaying menu's that are REALLY big.

Phenyl

Answer 15

I'm not entirely sure that I've understood the question because this is a fairly straightforward answer, but here goes... :)

Have you tried setting the overflow property of the container to visible or auto?

#some_div {
    height:100%;
    background:black; 
    overflow: visible;
    }

Adding that should push the black container to whatever size your dynamic container requires. I prefer visible to auto because auto seems to come with scroll bars...

Bonze

Answer 16

Even you can do like this

display:block;
overflow:auto;
height: 100%;

This will include your each dynamic div as per the content. Suppose if you have a common div with class it will increase height of each dynamic div according to the content

Whopper

display: table was the only thing that made it work for iphone as well for me. – Chateau

Answer 17

You can also use

 display: inline-block;

mine worked with this

Enate