Document.scrollingElement

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This is an experimental technology
Because this technology's specification has not stabilized, check the compatibility table for usage in various browsers. Also note that the syntax and behavior of an experimental technology is subject to change in future versions of browsers as the specification changes.

The scrollingElement read-only property of the Document interface returns a reference to the Element that scrolls the document.

For non-conforming user agents that always use the quirks mode behavior for scrollTop and scrollLeft, the scrollingElement attribute is expected to also always return the HTML body element (or null if it does not exist). 

Syntax

var element = document.scrollingElement;

Example

var scrollElm = document.scrollingElement;
scrollElm.scrollTop = 0;

Specifications

Specification Status Comment
CSS Object Model (CSSOM) View Module
The definition of 'scrollingElement' in that specification.
Working Draft Initial definition

Browser compatibility

Feature Chrome Edge Firefox (Gecko) Internet Explorer Opera Safari
Basic support 44.0 (Yes) 48.0 (48.0)[1] No support 33.0 9.0
Feature Android Firefox Mobile (Gecko) Firefox OS IE Mobile Opera Mobile Safari Mobile Chrome for Android
Basic support ? ? ? ? ? ? 44.0

[1] This feature was initially implemented in Gecko 47.0 (Firefox 47.0 / Thunderbird 47.0 / SeaMonkey 2.44) behind the preference dom.document.scrollingElement.enabled, defaulting to true on Nightly builds and false otherwise. In Gecko 48.0 (Firefox 48.0 / Thunderbird 48.0 / SeaMonkey 2.45) the feature got enabled by default and the preference removed.

Document Tags and Contributors

 Contributors to this page: Sebastianz, massic80, rolfedh, m_gol, teoli, jpmedley
 Last updated by: Sebastianz,