Element: scrollLeft property

The Element.scrollLeft property gets or sets the number of pixels that an element's content is scrolled from its left edge.

If the element's direction is rtl (right-to-left), then scrollLeft is 0 when the scrollbar is at its rightmost position (at the start of the scrolled content), and then increasingly negative as you scroll towards the end of the content.

It can be specified as any integer value. However:

  • If the element can't be scrolled (e.g., it has no overflow), scrollLeft is set to 0.
  • If specified as a value less than 0 (greater than 0 for right-to-left elements), scrollLeft is set to 0.
  • If specified as a value greater than the maximum that the content can be scrolled, scrollLeft is set to the maximum.

Warning: On systems using display scaling, scrollLeft may give you a decimal value.

Value

A number.

Examples

HTML

html
<div id="container">
  <div id="content">Click the button to slide right!</div>
</div>

<button id="slide" type="button">Slide right</button>

CSS

css
#container {
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  overflow-x: scroll;
}

#content {
  width: 250px;
  background-color: #ccc;
}

JavaScript

js
const button = document.getElementById("slide");

button.onclick = () => {
  document.getElementById("container").scrollLeft += 20;
};

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSSOM View Module
# dom-element-scrollleft

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also