Custom CSS Scrollbar for Firefox

I want to customize a scrollbar with CSS.

I use this WebKit CSS code, which works well for Safari and Chrome:

::-webkit-scrollbar {
  width: 15px;
  height: 15px;
}

::-webkit-scrollbar-track-piece {
  background-color: #c2d2e4;
}

::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb:vertical {
  height: 30px;
  background-color: #0a4c95;
}

How can I do the same thing in Firefox?

I know I can easily do it using jQuery, but I would prefer to do it with pure CSS if it's doable.

Solution 1:

As of late 2018, there is now limited customization available in Firefox!

See these answers:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/54101063/405015
https://stackoverflow.com/a/53739309/405015

And this for background info: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1460109

~~There's no Firefox equivalent to ::-webkit-scrollbar and friends.~~

You'll have to stick with JavaScript.

Plenty of people would like this feature, see: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790

As far as JavaScript replacements go, you can try:

https://github.com/mdbootstrap/perfect-scrollbar
https://github.com/Grsmto/simplebar
https://github.com/vitch/jScrollPane

Solution 2:

Firefox 64 adds support for the spec draft CSS Scrollbars Module Level 1, which adds two new properties of scrollbar-width and scrollbar-color which give some control over how scrollbars are displayed.

You can set scrollbar-color to one of the following values (descriptions from MDN):

auto Default platform rendering for the track portion of the scrollbar, in the absence of any other related scrollbar color properties.
dark Show a dark scrollbar, which can be either a dark variant of scrollbar provided by the platform, or a custom scrollbar with dark colors.
light Show a light scrollbar, which can be either a light variant of scrollbar provided by the platform, or a custom scrollbar with light colors.
<color> <color> Applies the first color to the scrollbar thumb, the second to the scrollbar track.

Note that dark and light values are not currently implemented in Firefox.

macOS notes:

The auto-hiding semi-transparent scrollbars that are the macOS default cannot be colored with this rule (they still choose their own contrasting color based on the background). Only the permanently showing scrollbars (System Preferences > Show Scroll Bars > Always) are colored.

Visual Demo:

.scroll {
  width: 20%;
  height: 100px;
  border: 1px solid grey;
  overflow: scroll;
  display: inline-block;
}
.scroll-color-auto {
  scrollbar-color: auto;
}
.scroll-color-dark {
  scrollbar-color: dark;
}
.scroll-color-light {
  scrollbar-color: light;
}
.scroll-color-colors {
  scrollbar-color: orange lightyellow;
}

<div class="scroll scroll-color-auto">
<p>auto</p><p>auto</p><p>auto</p><p>auto</p><p>auto</p><p>auto</p>
</div>

<div class="scroll scroll-color-dark">
<p>dark</p><p>dark</p><p>dark</p><p>dark</p><p>dark</p><p>dark</p>
</div>

<div class="scroll scroll-color-light">
<p>light</p><p>light</p><p>light</p><p>light</p><p>light</p><p>light</p>
</div>

<div class="scroll scroll-color-colors">
<p>colors</p><p>colors</p><p>colors</p><p>colors</p><p>colors</p><p>colors</p>
</div>

You can set scrollbar-width to one of the following values (descriptions from MDN):

auto The default scrollbar width for the platform.
thin A thin scrollbar width variant on platforms that provide that option, or a thinner scrollbar than the default platform scrollbar width.
none No scrollbar shown, however the element will still be scrollable.

You can also set a specific length value, according to the spec. Both thin and a specific length may not do anything on all platforms, and what exactly it does is platform-specific. In particular, Firefox doesn't appear to be currently support a specific length value (this comment on their bug tracker seems to confirm this). The thin keywork does appear to be well-supported however, with macOS and Windows support at-least.

It's probably worth noting that the length value option and the entire scrollbar-width property are being considered for removal in a future draft, and if that happens this particular property may be removed from Firefox in a future version.

Visual Demo:

.scroll {
  width: 30%;
  height: 100px;
  border: 1px solid grey;
  overflow: scroll;
  display: inline-block;
}
.scroll-width-auto {
  scrollbar-width: auto;
}
.scroll-width-thin {
  scrollbar-width: thin;
}
.scroll-width-none {
  scrollbar-width: none;
}

<div class="scroll scroll-width-auto">
<p>auto</p><p>auto</p><p>auto</p><p>auto</p><p>auto</p><p>auto</p>
</div>

<div class="scroll scroll-width-thin">
<p>thin</p><p>thin</p><p>thin</p><p>thin</p><p>thin</p><p>thin</p>
</div>

<div class="scroll scroll-width-none">
<p>none</p><p>none</p><p>none</p><p>none</p><p>none</p><p>none</p>
</div>

Solution 3:

Since Firefox 64, is possible to use new specs for a simple Scrollbar styling (not as complete as in Chrome with vendor prefixes).

In this example is possible to see a solution that combine different rules to address both Firefox and Chrome with a similar (not equal) final result (example use your original Chrome rules):

The key rules are:

For Firefox

.scroller {
  overflow-y: scroll;
  scrollbar-color: #0A4C95 #C2D2E4;
}

For Chrome

.scroller::-webkit-scrollbar {
    width: 15px;
    height: 15px;
}

.scroller::-webkit-scrollbar-track-piece  {
    background-color: #C2D2E4;
}

.scroller::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb:vertical {
    height: 30px;
    background-color: #0A4C95;
}

Please note that respect to your solution, is possible to use also simpler Chrome rules as the following:

.scroller::-webkit-scrollbar-track  {
    background-color: #C2D2E4;
}

.scroller::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb {
    height: 30px;
    background-color: #0A4C95;
}

Finally, in order to hide arrows in scrollbars also in Firefox, currently is necessary to set it as "thin" with the following rule scrollbar-width: thin;

Solution 4:

May I offer an alternative?

No scripting whatsoever, only standardized css styles and a little bit of creativity. Short answer - masking parts of the existing browser scrollbar, which means you retain all of it's functionality.

.scroll_content {
    position: relative;
    width: 400px;
    height: 414px;
    top: -17px;
    padding: 20px 10px 20px 10px;
    overflow-y: auto;
}

For demo and a little bit more in-depth explanation, check here...

jsfiddle.net/aj7bxtjz/1/

Solution 5:

I thought I would share my findings in case someone is considering a jQuery plugin to do the job.

I gave jQuery Custom Scrollbar a go. It's pretty fancy and does some smooth scrolling (with scrolling inertia) and has loads of parameters you can tweak, but it ended up being a bit too CPU intensive for me (and it adds a fair amount to the DOM).

Now I'm giving Perfect Scrollbar a go. It's simple and lightweight (6 KB) and it's doing a decent job so far. It's not CPU intensive at all (as far as I can tell) and adds very little to your DOM. It's only got a couple of parameters to tweak (wheelSpeed and wheelPropagation), but it's all I need and it handles updates to the scrolling content nicely (such as loading images).

P.S. I did have a quick look at JScrollPane, but @simone is right, it's a bit dated now and a PITA.