Is there a cross-domain iframe height auto-resizer that works?

You have three alternatives:

1. Use iFrame-resizer

This is a simple library for keeping iFrames sized to their content. It uses the PostMessage and MutationObserver APIs, with fall backs for IE8-10. It also has options for the content page to request the containing iFrame is a certain size and can also close the iFrame when your done with it.

https://github.com/davidjbradshaw/iframe-resizer

2. Use Easy XDM (PostMessage + Flash combo)

Easy XDM uses a collection of tricks for enabling cross-domain communication between different windows in a number of browsers, and there are examples for using it for iframe resizing:

http://easyxdm.net/wp/2010/03/17/resize-iframe-based-on-content/

http://kinsey.no/blog/index.php/2010/02/19/resizing-iframes-using-easyxdm/

Easy XDM works by using PostMessage on modern browsers and a Flash based solution as fallback for older browsers.

See also this thread on Stackoverflow (there are also others, this is a commonly asked question). Also, Facebook would seem to use a similar approach.

3. Communicate via a server

Another option would be to send the iframe height to your server and then poll from that server from the parent web page with JSONP (or use a long poll if possible).


I got the solution for setting the height of the iframe dynamically based on it's content. This works for the cross domain content. There are some steps to follow to achieve this.

  1. Suppose you have added iframe in "abc.com/page" web page

    <div> <iframe id="IframeId" src="http://xyz.pqr/contactpage" style="width:100%;" onload="setIframeHeight(this)"></iframe> </div>

  2. Next you have to bind windows "message" event under web page "abc.com/page"

window.addEventListener('message', function (event) {
//Here We have to check content of the message event  for safety purpose
//event data contains message sent from page added in iframe as shown in step 3
if (event.data.hasOwnProperty("FrameHeight")) {
        //Set height of the Iframe
        $("#IframeId").css("height", event.data.FrameHeight);        
    }
});

On iframe load you have to send message to iframe window content with "FrameHeight" message:

function setIframeHeight(ifrm) {
   var height = ifrm.contentWindow.postMessage("FrameHeight", "*");   
}
  1. On main page that added under iframe here "xyz.pqr/contactpage" you have to bind windows "message" event where all messages are going to receive from parent window of "abc.com/page"
window.addEventListener('message', function (event) {

    // Need to check for safety as we are going to process only our messages
    // So Check whether event with data(which contains any object) contains our message here its "FrameHeight"
   if (event.data == "FrameHeight") {

        //event.source contains parent page window object 
        //which we are going to use to send message back to main page here "abc.com/page"

        //parentSourceWindow = event.source;

        //Calculate the maximum height of the page
        var body = document.body, html = document.documentElement;
        var height = Math.max(body.scrollHeight, body.offsetHeight,
            html.clientHeight, html.scrollHeight, html.offsetHeight);

       // Send height back to parent page "abc.com/page"
        event.source.postMessage({ "FrameHeight": height }, "*");       
    }
});