Make scroll bar take no space / prevent layout shift

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Porter Morgan

I am making an application with html and am needing to have a scroll bar. But whenever I add one it shifts everything over to make the necessary room needed for the scroll bar. This screws up the layout of the application.

So I need a way to make the scroll bar simply overlay on top of the page, meaning the page is still there behind it. I already know how to style the scroll bar to make the back transparent, I just need the scroll bar to not take up any space.

Thanks In Advance!

Update 2021 - Use scrollbar-gutter

The scrollbar-gutter CSS property allows authors to reserve space for the scrollbar, preventing unwanted layout changes as the content grows while also avoiding unnecessary visuals when scrolling isn't needed.

body {
  overflow-y: auto;
  scrollbar-gutter: stable;
}

Example

scrollbar-gutter examples

Demo in Stack Snippets and jsFiddle

<!-- begin snippet: js hide: true console: true babel: false --> <!-- language: lang-css --> 
body {
  padding: 16px;
}
.grid {
    display: grid;
    grid-template-columns: repeat(2, 273px);
    grid-gap: 16px;
}
.card-header {
  margin-bottom: 4px;
  white-space: pre-line;
  font-weight: bold;
}
.card-body {
  overflow: auto;
  border: 1px solid black;
  height: 120px;
  
}
.scrollbar-stable {
  scrollbar-gutter: stable;
}
<!-- language: lang-html --> 
<h1><code>scrollbar-gutter</code> sample</h1>

<div class="grid">

  <div class="card">
    <pre class="card-header">
overflow: auto;
scrollbar-gutter: auto;
    </pre>
    <div class="card-body">Doggo ipsum length boy noodle horse doing me a frighten doggorino, woofer he made many woofs. Thicc puggorino smol</div>
  </div>
  
  <div class="card">
    <pre class="card-header">
overflow: auto;
scrollbar-gutter: stable;
    </pre>
    <div class="card-body scrollbar-stable">Doggo ipsum length boy noodle horse doing me a frighten doggorino, woofer he made many woofs. Thicc puggorino smol</div>
  </div>
  
  <div class="card">
    <pre class="card-header">
overflow: auto;
scrollbar-gutter: auto;
    </pre>
    <div class="card-body">Doggo ipsum length boy noodle horse doing me a frighten doggorino, woofer he made many woofs. Thicc puggorino smol borking doggo with a long snoot for pats shibe long woofer very hand that feed shibe pats, vvv wow such tempt long woofer heckin fluffer. Long water shoob smol corgo sub woofer</div>
  </div>
  
  <div class="card">
    <pre class="card-header">
overflow: auto;
scrollbar-gutter: stable;
    </pre>
    <div class="card-body scrollbar-stable">Doggo ipsum length boy noodle horse doing me a frighten doggorino, woofer he made many woofs. Thicc puggorino smol borking doggo with a long snoot for pats shibe long woofer very hand that feed shibe pats, vvv wow such tempt long woofer heckin fluffer. Long water shoob smol corgo sub woofer</div>
  </div>
  
</div>
<!-- end snippet -->

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