snippetcssTip

Scroll progress bar

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

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progresscssscrollbar

Problem

Horizontal progress-style scroll bars are a fairly new trend in web design. They are often used in tandem with the traditional vertical scroll bar to provide a visual representation of the user's progress through the page. So how does one go about implementing this feature?
As far as CSS is concerned, there's very little work to be done. The progress bar itself is just a simple div element with a fixed position at the top of the page.
The magic happens in the JavaScript, where we use EventTarget.addEventListener() to listen for the scroll event. Then, we use the Element.scrollTop property to determine the scroll percentage of the document and apply it to the width of the progress bar.
https://codepen.io/chalarangelo/pen/gOVrBVM

Solution

#scroll-progress {
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  width: 0%;
  height: 4px;
  background: #7983ff;
  z-index: 10000;
}

The magic happens in the JavaScript, where we use EventTarget.addEventListener() to listen for the scroll event. Then, we use the Element.scrollTop property to determine the scroll percentage of the document and apply it to the width of the progress bar.
https://codepen.io/chalarangelo/pen/gOVrBVM

Code Snippets

#scroll-progress {
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  width: 0%;
  height: 4px;
  background: #7983ff;
  z-index: 10000;
}

const scrollProgress = document.getElementById('scroll-progress');
const height =
  document.documentElement.scrollHeight - document.documentElement.clientHeight;

window.addEventListener('scroll', () => {
  const scrollTop =
    document.body.scrollTop || document.documentElement.scrollTop;
  scrollProgress.style.width = `${(scrollTop / height) * 100}%`;
});

Context

From 30-seconds-of-code: scroll-progress-bar

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