snippetcssTip

Content-aware height transition

Submitted by: @import:30-seconds-of-code·Mar 2, 2026·

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transitionawarecssheightcontent

Problem

As you may be aware, the height property cannot be transitioned from 0 to auto directly. Instead, we usually rely on max-height to transition an element's height from 0 to a known value. However, when the height of the element is unknown, we can use a combination of JavaScript and CSS variables to transition the height from 0 to auto.
The trick here is to leverage CSS custom properties to alter the max-height. Then, using JavaScript, we can change the value of the custom property to the actual height of the element's content.
So, how do we do that, exactly? Provided we've defined a --max-height CSS variable with, we can use Element.scrollHeight and CSSStyleDeclaration.setProperty() to set the value of the custom property to the current height of the element. This way, we can essentially transition the height of the element from 0 to auto.
In order to complete the effect and apply it on hover, we'll use the :hover pseudo-class to change the max-height to the value of the --max-height variable set by JavaScript. We'll also add a transition for the max-height property to animate the height change.
And voilà! You've got yourself a content-aware height transition.

Solution

<div class="trigger">
  Hover me to see a height transition.
  <div class="el">Additional content</div>
</div>

So, how do we do that, exactly? Provided we've defined a --max-height CSS variable with, we can use Element.scrollHeight and CSSStyleDeclaration.setProperty() to set the value of the custom property to the current height of the element. This way, we can essentially transition the height of the element from 0 to auto.
In order to complete the effect and apply it on hover, we'll use the :hover pseudo-class to change the max-height to the value of the --max-height variable set by JavaScript. We'll also add a transition for the max-height property to animate the height change.
And voilà! You've got yourself a content-aware height transition.
https://codepen.io/chalarangelo/pen/OJeKKBZ
> [!CAUTION]
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Code Snippets

<div class="trigger">
  Hover me to see a height transition.
  <div class="el">Additional content</div>
</div>

.el {
  transition: max-height 0.3s;
  overflow: hidden;
  max-height: 0;
}

.trigger:hover > .el {
  max-height: var(--max-height);
}

const el = document.querySelector('.el');
const height = el.scrollHeight;

el.style.setProperty('--max-height', height + 'px');

Context

From 30-seconds-of-code: content-aware-height-transition

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