How to create good looking custom scrollbars
In my opinion one of the most difficult part in frontend is to make the layout look similar in every browser and that's because we have CSS Resets, but scrollbars can be one of the points we forget but can makes a huge difference to users.
## Introduction
At my first year as developer, I always will remember a gaffe committed when introducing some new features I had developed to the CEO's company. Well, I use Mozilla Developer Edition to code, but at that time I forgot users uses Chrome in majority.
<Img
src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/8be10ac9-bb0f-47d5-93b7-bed3144ad9fe"
source="https://gs.statcounter.com"
name="Browser Market Share Worldwide Dec 2022 - Jan 2024"
alt="Statcounter graph showing Chrome are used by 70% of the users"
/>
So the CEO. Yes, the scrollbar's feature was horrible in Chrome because the scrollbars are not aesthetic as Firefox. In the end, I did not got any in any trouble, the CEO only just pointed out and I did the fix in the next patch. I learnt to never forget scrollbars again, it cannot be neglected.
## Problems
The main issue with scrollbars it is different styles in each browser which makes really hard to us track how the final layout is gonna be delivered to the user. And is not only the visuals, some browsers make the scrollbars take a size of the container, which can lead to layout looking weird. We gonna follow the name convention in [this fantastic article by Zach Leatherman - Two Browsers Walked Into a Scrollbar](https://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/scrollbars/):
<Blockquote cite="https://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/scrollbars">
- Obtrusive scrollbars: scrollbars that take up screen real estate. These do not overlay on top of the content, but appear next to it.
- Unobtrusive scrollbars: scrollbars that sit on top of the content. These don't subtract screen real estate away from the container they belong to.
</Blockquote>
I personally would prefer that every browser had unobtrusive scrollbars most because we as developer would not need to worry about taking some space in our layout. But I know that's not possible and probably would ruin a lot of layouts out there. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying some browser is better than other, I really think that every browser has some kind of problem when talking about scrollbars. Let's point out:
### Mozilla Firefox
Firefox has unobtrusive and really aesthetic scrollbar which is great but I don't like how only "grows" the scrollbar on hover, not the container, but the scrollbar. I think if it has to grow, that should grow on hover the content to be easy accessed and not the scrollbar. Like if I already have reached the scrollbar, it does not need to grow, right? The grow is to make the bar more accessible...
<Img
src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/ad1747c2-699f-492f-9f07-be5b8f2f97aa"
name="Mozilla Firefox default scrollbar"
alt="Gif showing that Firefox only grows the scrollbar if hovered IN the scrollbar"
/>
### Chromium Browsers
I love chromium browsers specially Chrome and Opera GX, I use them both in different situations, like coding I like Chrome and Mozilla Firefox Developer, but for daily routines I prefer Opera GX. But most of the scrollbars are not that great. First, they are obtrusive which for sole already brings some problems. Second, it is so wider even if user is not hovering the content, which is really ugly...
<Img
src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/d0c6360e-0546-4999-a296-8c11c2f62947"
name="Chrome default scrollbar"
alt="Gif showing the default behavior scrollbar in Mozilla Firefox"
/>
### Edge
One scrollbar I really like is from Edge Browser, yes, the successor of Internet Explorer. I think Edge has a lot of similar stuff with Chrome and the scrollbar is no different. Edge still has a wide scrollbar, but the borders are rounded which gives like a Firefox feeling. I really like, but I think could be better if were a little thinner.
<Img
src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/64badb1a-3fb8-4174-8c73-ba4222560296"
name="Edge default scrollbar"
alt="Gif showing the default behavior scrollbar in Edge"
/>
## Mobile
In mobile we have a little different problem. In my opinion mobile, the scrollbar can have the same problems above depending on which mobile browser you are, but with additional that scrollbars are only shown if you are actually scrolling, how I am supposed to know if that container has scroll if does not have a scrollbar?
## Objectives
In this article I gonna show you how you can make your scrollbars aesthetic as can be in many different browsers, only using CSS. I am already warning you that is not possible to make like a reset to them, like we have done to **h1**, **p** and so on. CSS has its limitations and to achieve the fully goal probably will you need some Javascript code or maybe create all the logic with it. The method I am gonna show you is relative simple and can works on most browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Brave, Opera GX, Edge and Safari, there will be an image with properties browser support in the end of the article. I think that's enough of talk, let's code.
## Solution
First, please, do not ever style the main scrollbar. This is not standard, this do not need to follow your layout, it's good to look native to users do get lost. I think is good to style your scrollbars inside something you created, because this is "part" of your layout, different from the main scrollbar that is "part" of browser's layout. Did get it?
Well, for the solution, I searched a lot and got really frustrated when finding out the perfect solution do not exist, but we can came to a really nice result. Most of the sites uses some kind of Javascript or very difficult CSS approaches, so I filtered out the really necessary styles and merge them in a class **styled-scrollbars** you can use in the overflowing container. Most of these styles were gotten from [Reddit's aside menu](https://www.reddit.com).
## CSS code
There is no error, we gonna use two properties for Firefox (**scrollbar-color** and **scrollbar-width**) and some webkit for Chromium's browsers.
``` css
/* Firefox Only */
/* Approaches mobile first, because here, the scrollbar-color will be set and always will be that color, but on desktop, that we have hover effect, we can give a transparent color, but how this is mobile first, we give the color here, and treat the desktop in other style */
.styled-scrollbars {
scrollbar-color: var(--some-really-nice-color-here);
scrollbar-width: thin;
}
/* Chrome and others Browsers */
.styled-scrollbars::-webkit-scrollbar {
width: 4px;
height: 4px
}
/* Chrome and others Browsers */
.styled-scrollbars::-webkit-scrollbar-track {
background: transparent;
}
/* With device has hover (Desktop or TV, etc) give a little effect on hover */
@media (hover: hover) {
.styled-scrollbars {
scrollbar-color: var(--some-really-nice-color-here-not-hover) transparent ;
scrollbar-width: thin;
border-radius: 8px;
transition: cubic-bezier(0.165, 0.84, 0.44, 1) 500ms all ;
}
.styled-scrollbars:hover {
scrollbar-color: var(--some-really-nice-color-here) transparent
}
.styled-scrollbars:hover::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb {
background: var(--some-really-nice-color-here);
border-radius: 8px;
-ms-overflow-style: none;
scrollbar-width: thin;
}
}
```
To find the browser's support, please look at:
- [webkit-scrollbar](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/::-webkit-scrollbar)
- [scrollbar-color](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/scrollbar-color)
- [scrollbar-width](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/scrollbar-width)
## Final results
<Img
src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/4af5a2b1-b06a-444d-a135-3b5f85472089"
name="Mozilla Firefox"
alt="Gif showing the result of aesthetic scrollbar in Firefox"
/>
<Img
src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/24d9ca86-69a8-4335-9dea-b68f0278701d"
name="Chrome"
alt="Gif showing the result of aesthetic scrollbar in Chrome"
/>
<Img
src="https://github.com/fescherer/blog/assets/62115215/9e114c2b-06ca-459b-aa95-aecc4b02e57d"
name="Edge"
alt="Gif showing the result of aesthetic scrollbar in Edge"
/>
## Additional tips
One very interesting stuff I found by searching content for this article is a solution for components that has a special css for hovering effects, is to use **media query hover** to only enable this on hover support devices. You can checkout the [full video by the master of CSS Kevin Powell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuluAyw9AI0). I highly recommend.
## Conclusion
In this article we saw a very clean way, consistent and CSS only to style your scrollbars to be aesthetic as possible between many different browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Brave, Opera GX, Edge and Safari. Of course this approach is not 100% effective in all platforms, but works on most of them. Have a nice day. 😎✨✨✨😎