CSS is a language that continuously evolves to meet the needs of web developers and designers, offering more flexibility and control over aesthetics. One such feature that enhances visual customization is scrollbar-color, introduced in the CSS Scrollbars Module Level 1. This feature allows developers to style the colors of scrollbars, enhancing the design cohesion of websites.

The scrollbar-color property lets you define the colors of a scrollbar in a more detailed manner, by specifying the track and thumb colors. Before this property was introduced, scrollbar styling was inconsistent and required vendor prefixes or lacked support altogether. With scrollbar-color, designing scrollbars that match a site’s theme has become straightforward and cross-browser friendly.

Here’s how you can use scrollbar-color in your CSS:

/* Syntax: scrollbar-color: <thumb-color> <track-color>; */
body {
  scrollbar-color: rebeccapurple lightgray;
}

In this example, rebeccapurple is used for the scrollbar thumb, and lightgray is applied to the scrollbar track. This approach gives a minimalist yet elegant look that aligns with modern web design aesthetics.

Why is scrollbar-color such a useful feature today? As websites increasingly focus on providing a seamless user experience, every detail matters, including scrollbars. Styled scrollbars can contribute to creating a cohesive design language and can effectively enhance user interface aesthetics, especially on web applications and sites that utilize lots of scrollable content.

However, developers should note that while scrollbar styling can enhance a site’s look, overdoing it might negatively affect usability, such as making scrollbars too small or less visible. It’s essential to maintain a balance between aesthetics and functionality.

Regarding browser support, scrollbar-color enjoys reasonable compatibility across modern browsers. It is supported in Firefox (version 64 and above) and is now also incorporated into the standard CSS for Chromium-based browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge as of their latest releases. However, Safari does not support scrollbar-color, although changes are on the horizon as the CSS Scrollbars Module becomes more widely adopted. It’s crucial to provide fallbacks or ensure your design accommodates browsers lacking support, potentially using JavaScript for custom scrollbar implementations if necessary.

Incorporating scrollbar-color into your web design toolkit allows you to create more visually cohesive and attractive user interfaces. By refining even the smallest web elements like scrollbars, you enrich the user experience and push the boundaries of what modern web design can achieve.

Updated: