Richard C.
—How do you scroll to the top of the page in JavaScript? You might want to do this programmatically to, for example, add a button to the bottom of the page that a user can click to immediately return to the top.
If you want to move the page to a specific coordinate programmatically the best solution is to use scrollTo
:
globalThis.scrollTo({ top: 0, left: 0, behavior: "smooth" });
Note:
globalThis
instead of window
because globalThis
works in both Node.js and browsers, instead of global
or window
.behavior
can be smooth
, instant
, or auto
(which is set in CSS). smooth
is best for most web pages, but for work apps where users might scroll up hundreds of times a day you’ll want to use instant
.top
and left
are the number of pixels away from the top left corner of the page.globalThis.scrollTo(0, 0);
. There’s no reason to use this anymore, but it isn’t harmful.If you want to scroll the page to a specific section, where the absolute coordinate might change as the page layout changes, it’s better to use an anchor.
document.getElementById("title").scrollIntoView({ behavior: "smooth" });
You need an element with an id
for this to work, like <span id="title">This is the top of my page</span>
.
Instead of scrolling automatically, if you want the user to be able to click a button to scroll up, you can add the following to your HTML:
<span id="title">This is the top of my page</span> <button onClick="document.getElementById('title').scrollIntoView({ behavior: 'smooth'});"> Back to top </button>
Be careful if you change the location of the URL bar, like this: document.location.href = "#top";
. It may cause problems in a single page app (SPA) if it interferes with the framework’s page history. Test it and see.
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