Creating a textarea with auto-resize

Question

There was another thread about this, which I've tried. But there is one problem: the textarea doesn't shrink if you delete the content. I can't find any way to shrink it to the correct size - the clientHeight value comes back as the full size of the textarea, not its contents.

The code from that page is below:

function FitToContent(id, maxHeight)
{
   var text = id && id.style ? id : document.getElementById(id);
   if ( !text )
      return;

   var adjustedHeight = text.clientHeight;
   if ( !maxHeight || maxHeight > adjustedHeight )
   {
      adjustedHeight = Math.max(text.scrollHeight, adjustedHeight);
      if ( maxHeight )
         adjustedHeight = Math.min(maxHeight, adjustedHeight);
      if ( adjustedHeight > text.clientHeight )
         text.style.height = adjustedHeight + "px";
   }
}

window.onload = function() {
    document.getElementById("ta").onkeyup = function() {
      FitToContent( this, 500 )
    };
}

Answer 1

A COMPLETE YET SIMPLE SOLUTION

Updated 2023-06-08 (Added native js for updating via js injection)

The following code will work:

• On key input.
• With pasted text (right click & ctrl+v).
• With cut text (right click & ctrl+x).
• With pre-loaded text.
• With all textarea's (multiline textbox's) site wide.
• With Firefox (v31-109 tested).
• With Chrome (v37-108 tested).
• With IE (v9-v11 tested).
• With Edge (v14-v108 tested).
• With IOS Safari.
• With Android Browser.
• With JavaScript strict mode.

---

OPTION 1 (With jQuery)

This option requires jQuery and has been tested and is working with 1.7.2 - 3.6.3

Simple (Add this jQuery code to your master script file and forget about it.)

$("textarea").each(function () {
  this.setAttribute("style", "height:" + (this.scrollHeight) + "px;overflow-y:hidden;");
}).on("input", function () {
  this.style.height = 0;
  this.style.height = (this.scrollHeight) + "px";
});

<script src="https://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-3.6.3.min.js"></script>
<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here...">PRELOADED TEXT.
This JavaScript should now add better support for IOS browsers and Android browsers.</textarea>
<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here..."></textarea>

Test on jsfiddle

---

OPTION 2 (Pure JavaScript)

Simple (Add this JavaScript to your master script file and forget about it.)

const tx = document.getElementsByTagName("textarea");
for (let i = 0; i < tx.length; i++) {
  tx[i].setAttribute("style", "height:" + (tx[i].scrollHeight) + "px;overflow-y:hidden;");
  tx[i].addEventListener("input", OnInput, false);
}

function OnInput() {
  this.style.height = 0;
  this.style.height = (this.scrollHeight) + "px";
}

<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here...">PRELOADED TEXT. This JavaScript should now add better support for IOS browsers and Android browsers.</textarea>
<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here..."></textarea>

Test on jsfiddle

---

OPTION 3 (jQuery Extension)

Useful if you want to apply further chaining to the textareas, you want to be auto-sized.

jQuery.fn.extend({
  autoHeight: function () {
    function autoHeight_(element) {
      return jQuery(element)
        .css({ "height": 0, "overflow-y": "hidden" })
        .height(element.scrollHeight);
    }
    return this.each(function() {
      autoHeight_(this).on("input", function() {
        autoHeight_(this);
      });
    });
  }
});

Invoke with $("textarea").autoHeight()

---

UPDATING TEXTAREA VIA JAVASCRIPT

When injecting content into a textarea via JavaScript, append the following line of code to invoke the resize function.

jQuery

$("textarea").trigger("input");

Pure JavaScript

document.getElementsByTagName("textarea")[0].dispatchEvent(new Event('input', { bubbles: true }));

---

PRESET TEXTAREA HEIGHT

To fix the initial height of the textarea you will need to add another condition:

const txHeight = 16;
const tx = document.getElementsByTagName("textarea");

for (let i = 0; i < tx.length; i++) {
  if (tx[i].value == '') {
    tx[i].setAttribute("style", "height:" + txHeight + "px;overflow-y:hidden;");
  } else {
    tx[i].setAttribute("style", "height:" + (tx[i].scrollHeight) + "px;overflow-y:hidden;");
  }
  tx[i].addEventListener("input", OnInput, false);
}

function OnInput(e) {
  this.style.height = 0;
  this.style.height = (this.scrollHeight) + "px";
}

<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here...">PRELOADED TEXT. This JavaScript should now add better support for IOS browsers and Android browsers.</textarea>
<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here..."></textarea>

Answer 2

This works for me (Firefox 3.6/4.0 and Chrome 10/11):

var observe;
if (window.attachEvent) {
    observe = function (element, event, handler) {
        element.attachEvent('on'+event, handler);
    };
}
else {
    observe = function (element, event, handler) {
        element.addEventListener(event, handler, false);
    };
}
function init () {
    var text = document.getElementById('text');
    function resize () {
        text.style.height = 'auto';
        text.style.height = text.scrollHeight+'px';
    }
    /* 0-timeout to get the already changed text */
    function delayedResize () {
        window.setTimeout(resize, 0);
    }
    observe(text, 'change',  resize);
    observe(text, 'cut',     delayedResize);
    observe(text, 'paste',   delayedResize);
    observe(text, 'drop',    delayedResize);
    observe(text, 'keydown', delayedResize);

    text.focus();
    text.select();
    resize();
}

textarea {
    border: 0 none white;
    overflow: hidden;
    padding: 0;
    outline: none;
    background-color: #D0D0D0;
}

<body onload="init();">
<textarea rows="1" style="height:1em;" id="text"></textarea>
</body>

If you want try it on jsfiddle It starts with a single line and grows only the exact amount necessary. It is ok for a single textarea, but I wanted to write something where I would have many many many such textareas (about as much as one would normally have lines in a large text document). In that case it is really slow. (In Firefox it's insanely slow.) So I really would like an approach that uses pure CSS. This would be possible with contenteditable, but I want it to be plaintext-only.

Answer 3

jQuery solution adjust the css to match your requirements

css...

div#container textarea {
    min-width: 270px;
    width: 270px;
    height: 22px;
    line-height: 24px;
    min-height: 22px;
    overflow-y: hidden; /* fixes scrollbar flash - kudos to @brettjonesdev */
    padding-top: 1.1em; /* fixes text jump on Enter keypress */
}

javascript...

// auto adjust the height of
$('#container').delegate( 'textarea', 'keydown', function (){
    $(this).height( 0 );
    $(this).height( this.scrollHeight );
});
$('#container').find( 'textarea' ).keydown();

OR alternative for jQuery 1.7+...

// auto adjust the height of
$('#container').on( 'keyup', 'textarea', function (){
    $(this).height( 0 );
    $(this).height( this.scrollHeight );
});
$('#container').find( 'textarea' ).keyup();

I've created a fiddle with the absolute minimum styling as a starting point for your experiments... http://jsfiddle.net/53eAy/951/

Answer 4

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Textarea autoresize</title>
    <style>
    textarea {
        overflow: hidden;
    }
    </style>
    <script>
    function resizeTextarea(ev) {
        this.style.height = '24px';
        this.style.height = this.scrollHeight + 12 + 'px';
    }

    var te = document.querySelector('textarea');
    te.addEventListener('input', resizeTextarea);
    </script>
</head>
<body>
    <textarea></textarea>
</body>
</html>

Tested in Firefox 14 and Chromium 18. The numbers 24 and 12 are arbitrary, test to see what suits you best.

You could do without the style and script tags, but it becomes a bit messy imho (this is old style HTML+JS and is not encouraged).

<textarea style="overflow: hidden" onkeyup="this.style.height='24px'; this.style.height = this.scrollHeight + 12 + 'px';"></textarea>

Edit: modernized code. Changed onkeyup attribute to addEventListener.
Edit: keydown works better than keyup
Edit: declare function before using
Edit: input works better than keydown (thnx @WASD42 & @MA-Maddin)

jsfiddle

Answer 5

The best solution (works and is short) for me is:

    $(document).on('input', 'textarea', function () {
        $(this).outerHeight(38).outerHeight(this.scrollHeight); // 38 or '1em' -min-height
    }); 

It works like a charm without any blinking with paste (with mouse also), cut, entering and it shrinks to the right size.

Please take a look at jsFiddle.

Answer 6

Found an one liner from here;

<textarea name="text" oninput="this.style.height = ''; this.style.height = this.scrollHeight +'px'"></textarea>

Answer 7

If you don’t need to support IE8 you can use the input event:

var resizingTextareas = [].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll('textarea[autoresize]'));

resizingTextareas.forEach(function(textarea) {
  textarea.addEventListener('input', autoresize, false);
});

function autoresize() {
  this.style.height = 'auto';
  this.style.height = this.scrollHeight+'px';
  this.scrollTop = this.scrollHeight;
  window.scrollTo(window.scrollLeft,(this.scrollTop+this.scrollHeight));
}

Now you only need to add some CSS and you are done:

textarea[autoresize] {
  display: block;
  overflow: hidden;
  resize: none;
}

Usage:

<textarea autoresize>Type here and I’ll resize.</textarea>

You can read more about how it works on my blog post.

Answer 8

You're using the higher value of the current clientHeight and the content scrollHeight. When you make the scrollHeight smaller by removing content, the calculated area can't get smaller because the clientHeight, previously set by style.height, is holding it open. You could instead take a max() of scrollHeight and a minimum height value you have predefined or calculated from textarea.rows.

In general you probably shouldn't really rely on scrollHeight on form controls. Apart from scrollHeight being traditionally less widely-supported than some of the other IE extensions, HTML/CSS says nothing about how form controls are implemented internally and you aren't guaranteed scrollHeight will be anything meaningful. (Traditionally some browsers have used OS widgets for the task, making CSS and DOM interaction on their internals impossible.) At least sniff for scrollHeight/clientHeight's existance before trying to enable the effect.

Another possible alternative approach to avoid the issue if it's important that it work more widely might be to use a hidden div sized to the same width as the textarea, and set in the same font. On keyup, you copy the text from the textarea to a text node in hidden div (remembering to replace '\n' with a line break, and escape '<'/'&' properly if you're using innerHTML). Then simply measuring the div's offsetHeight will give you the height you need.

Answer 9

autosize

https://github.com/jackmoore/autosize

Just works, standalone, is popular (3.0k+ GitHub stars as of October 2018), available on cdnjs) and lightweight (~3.5k). Demo:

<textarea id="autosize" style="width:200px;">a
J   b
c</textarea>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/autosize.js/4.0.2/autosize.min.js"></script>
<script>autosize(document.querySelectorAll('#autosize'));</script>

BTW, if you are using the ACE editor, use maxLines: Infinity: Automatically adjust height to contents in Ace Cloud 9 editor

Answer 10

As a different approach, you can use a <span> which adjusts its size automatically. You will need make it editable by adding the contenteditable="true" property and you're done:

div {
  width: 200px;
}

span {
  border: 1px solid #000;
  padding: 5px;
}

<div>
  <span contenteditable="true">This text can be edited by the user</span>
</div>

The only issue with this approach is that if you want to submit the value as part of the form, you'll have to do so by yourself in JavaScript. Doing so is relatively easy. For example, you can add a hidden field and in the onsubmit event of the form assign the value of the span to the hidden field which will be then automatically submitted with the form.

Answer 11

There is a slightly different approach.

<div style="position: relative">
  <pre style="white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word"></pre>
  <textarea style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%"></textarea>
</div>

The idea is to copy the text from textarea into the pre and let CSS make sure that they have the same size.

The benefit is that frameworks present simple tools to move text around without touching any events. Namely, in AngularJS you would add a ng-model="foo" ng-trim="false" to the textarea and ng-bind="foo + '\n'" to the pre. See a fiddle.

Just make sure that pre has the same font size as the textarea.

Answer 12

Has anyone considered contenteditable? No messing around with scrolling,a nd the only JS I like about it is if you plan on saving the data on blur... and apparently, it's compatible on all of the popular browsers : http://caniuse.com/#feat=contenteditable

Just style it to look like a text box, and it autosizes... Make its min-height the preferred text height and have at it.

What's cool about this approach is that you can save and tags on some of the browsers.

http://jsfiddle.net/gbutiri/v31o8xfo/

var _auto_value = '';
$(document).on('blur', '.autosave', function(e) {
  var $this = $(this);
  if ($this.text().trim() == '') {
    $this.html('');
  }

  // The text is here. Do whatever you want with it.
  $this.addClass('saving');

  if (_auto_value !== $this.html() || $this.hasClass('error')) {

    // below code is for example only.
    $.ajax({
      url: '/echo/json/?action=xyz_abc',
      data: 'data=' + $this.html(),
      type: 'post',
      datatype: 'json',
      success: function(d) {
        console.log(d);
        $this.removeClass('saving error').addClass('saved');
        var k = setTimeout(function() {
          $this.removeClass('saved error')
        }, 500);
      },
      error: function() {
        $this.removeClass('saving').addClass('error');
      }
    });
  } else {
    $this.removeClass('saving');
  }
}).on('focus mouseup', '.autosave', function() {
  var $this = $(this);
  if ($this.text().trim() == '') {
    $this.html('');
  }
  _auto_value = $this.html();
}).on('keyup', '.autosave', function(e) {
  var $this = $(this);
  if ($this.text().trim() == '') {
    $this.html('');
  }
});

body {
  background: #3A3E3F;
  font-family: Arial;
}

label {
  font-size: 11px;
  color: #ddd;
}

.autoheight {
  min-height: 16px;
  font-size: 16px;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 10px;
  font-family: Arial;
  line-height: 20px;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  -o-box-sizing: border-box;
  -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
  -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
  overflow: hidden;
  display: block;
  resize: none;
  border: 0;
  outline: none;
  min-width: 200px;
  background: #ddd;
  max-height: 400px;
  overflow: auto;
}

.autoheight:hover {
  background: #eee;
}

.autoheight:focus {
  background: #fff;
}

.autosave {
  -webkit-transition: all .2s;
  -moz-transition: all .2s;
  transition: all .2s;
  position: relative;
  float: none;
}

.autoheight * {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}

.autosave.saving {
  background: #ff9;
}

.autosave.saved {
  background: #9f9;
}

.autosave.error {
  background: #f99;
}

.autosave:hover {
  background: #eee;
}

.autosave:focus {
  background: #fff;
}

[contenteditable=true]:empty:before {
  content: attr(placeholder);
  color: #999;
  position: relative;
  top: 0px;
  /*
    For IE only, do this:
    position: absolute;
    top: 10px;
    */
  cursor: text;
}

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<label>Your Name</label>
<div class="autoheight autosave contenteditable" contenteditable="true" placeholder="Your Name"></div>

Answer 13

The following works for cutting, pasting, etc., regardless of whether those actions are from the mouse, a keyboard shortcut, selecting an option from a menu bar ... several answers take a similar approach but they don't account for box-sizing, which is why they incorrectly apply the style overflow: hidden.

I do the following, which also works well with max-height and rows for minimum and maximum height.

function adjust() {
  var style = this.currentStyle || window.getComputedStyle(this);
  var boxSizing = style.boxSizing === 'border-box'
      ? parseInt(style.borderBottomWidth, 10) +
        parseInt(style.borderTopWidth, 10)
      : 0;
  this.style.height = '';
  this.style.height = (this.scrollHeight + boxSizing) + 'px';
};

var textarea = document.getElementById("ta");
if ('onpropertychange' in textarea) { // IE
  textarea.onpropertychange = adjust;
} else if ('oninput' in textarea) {
  textarea.oninput = adjust;
}
setTimeout(adjust.bind(textarea));

textarea {
  resize: none;
  max-height: 150px;
  border: 1px solid #999;
  outline: none;
  font: 18px sans-serif;
  color: #333;
  width: 100%;
  padding: 8px 14px;
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

<textarea rows="3" id="ta">
Try adding several lines to this.
</textarea>

For absolute completeness, you should call the adjust function in a few more circumstances:

1. Window resize events, if the width of the textarea changes with window resizing, or other events that change the width of the textarea
2. When the textarea's display style attribute changes, e.g. when it goes from none (hidden) to block
3. When the value of the textarea is changed programmatically

Note that using window.getComputedStyle or getting currentStyle can be somewhat computationally expensive, so you may want to cache the result instead.

Works for IE6, so I really hope that's good enough support.

Answer 14

I used the following code for multiple textareas. Working fine in Chrome 12, Firefox 5 and IE 9, even with delete, cut and paste actions performed in the textareas.

function attachAutoResizeEvents() {
  for (i = 1; i <= 4; i++) {
    var txtX = document.getElementById('txt' + i)
    var minH = txtX.style.height.substr(0, txtX.style.height.indexOf('px'))
    txtX.onchange = new Function("resize(this," + minH + ")")
    txtX.onkeyup = new Function("resize(this," + minH + ")")
    txtX.onchange(txtX, minH)
  }
}

function resize(txtX, minH) {
  txtX.style.height = 'auto' // required when delete, cut or paste is performed
  txtX.style.height = txtX.scrollHeight + 'px'
  if (txtX.scrollHeight <= minH)
    txtX.style.height = minH + 'px'
}
window.onload = attachAutoResizeEvents

textarea {
  border: 0 none;
  overflow: hidden;
  outline: none;
  background-color: #eee
}

<textarea style='height:100px;font-family:arial' id="txt1"></textarea>
<textarea style='height:125px;font-family:arial' id="txt2"></textarea>
<textarea style='height:150px;font-family:arial' id="txt3"></textarea>
<textarea style='height:175px;font-family:arial' id="txt4"></textarea>

Answer 15

I Don't know if anyone mention this way but in some cases it's possible to resize the height with rows Attribute

textarea.setAttribute('rows',breaks);

Demo

Answer 16

Here is an angularjs directive for panzi's answer.

 module.directive('autoHeight', function() {
        return {
            restrict: 'A',
            link: function(scope, element, attrs) {
                element = element[0];
                var resize = function(){
                    element.style.height = 'auto';
                    element.style.height = (element.scrollHeight)+'px';
                };
                element.addEventListener('change', resize, false);
                element.addEventListener('cut',    resize, false);
                element.addEventListener('paste',  resize, false);
                element.addEventListener('drop',   resize, false);
                element.addEventListener('keydown',resize, false);

                setTimeout(resize, 100);
            }
        };
    });

HTML:

<textarea ng-model="foo" auto-height></textarea>

Answer 17

A bit corrections. Works perfectly in Opera

  $('textarea').bind('keyup keypress', function() {
      $(this).height('');
      var brCount = this.value.split('\n').length;
      this.rows = brCount+1; //++ To remove twitching
      var areaH = this.scrollHeight,
          lineHeight = $(this).css('line-height').replace('px',''),
          calcRows = Math.floor(areaH/lineHeight);
      this.rows = calcRows;
  });

Answer 18

A simple way to do using React.

...
const textareaRef = useRef();

const handleChange = (e) => {
  textareaRef.current.style.height = "auto";
  textareaRef.current.style.height = textareaRef.current.scrollHeight + "px";
};

return <textarea ref={textareaRef} onChange={handleChange} />;

Answer 19

I know a short and correct way of implementing this with jquery.No extra hidden div needed and works in most browser

<script type="text/javascript">$(function(){
$("textarea").live("keyup keydown",function(){
var h=$(this);
h.height(60).height(h[0].scrollHeight);//where 60 is minimum height of textarea
});});

</script>

Answer 20

Some of the answers here don't account for padding.

Assuming you have a maxHeight you don't want to go over, this worked for me:

    // obviously requires jQuery

    // element is the textarea DOM node

    var $el = $(element);
    // inner height is height + padding
    // outerHeight includes border (and possibly margins too?)
    var padding = $el.innerHeight() - $el.height();
    var originalHeight = $el.height();

    // XXX: Don't leave this hardcoded
    var maxHeight = 300;

    var adjust = function() {
        // reset it to the original height so that scrollHeight makes sense
        $el.height(originalHeight);

        // this is the desired height (adjusted to content size)
        var height = element.scrollHeight - padding;

        // If you don't want a maxHeight, you can ignore this
        height = Math.min(height, maxHeight);

        // Set the height to the new adjusted height
        $el.height(height);
    }

    // The input event only works on modern browsers
    element.addEventListener('input', adjust);

Answer 21

An even simpler, cleaner approach is this:

// adjust height of textarea.auto-height
$(document).on( 'keyup', 'textarea.auto-height', function (e){
    $(this).css('height', 'auto' ); // you can have this here or declared in CSS instead
    $(this).height( this.scrollHeight );
}).keyup();

// and the CSS

textarea.auto-height {
    resize: vertical;
    max-height: 600px; /* set as you need it */
    height: auto;      /* can be set here of in JS */
    overflow-y: auto;
    word-wrap:break-word
}

All that is needed is to add the .auto-height class to any textarea you want to target.

Tested in FF, Chrome and Safari. Let me know if this doesn't work for you, for any reason. But, this is the cleanest and simplest way I've found this to work. And it works great! :D

Answer 22

You can use JQuery to expand the textarea while typing:

$(document).find('textarea').each(function () {
  var offset = this.offsetHeight - this.clientHeight;

  $(this).on('keyup input focus', function () {
    $(this).css('height', 'auto').css('height', this.scrollHeight + offset);
  });
});

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div>
<textarea name="note"></textarea>
<div>

Answer 23

Those who want to achieve the same in new versions of Angular.

Grab textArea elementRef.

@ViewChild('textArea', { read: ElementRef }) textArea: ElementRef;

public autoShrinkGrow() {
    textArea.style.overflow = 'hidden';
    textArea.style.height = '0px';
    textArea.style.height = textArea.scrollHeight + 'px';
}

<textarea (keyup)="autoGrow()" #textArea></textarea>

I am also adding another use case that may come handy some users reading the thread, when user want to increase the height of text-area to certain height and then have overflow:scroll on it, above method can be extended to achieve the mentioned use-case.

  public autoGrowShrinkToCertainHeight() {
    const textArea = this.textArea.nativeElement;
    if (textArea.scrollHeight > 77) {
      textArea.style.overflow = 'auto';
      return;
    }
    else {
      textArea.style.overflow = 'hidden';
      textArea.style.height = '0px';
      textArea.style.height = textArea.scrollHeight + 'px';
    }
  }

Answer 24

my implementation is very simple, count the number of lines in the input (and minimum 2 rows to show that it's a textarea):

textarea.rows = Math.max(2, textarea.value.split("\n").length) // # oninput

full working example with stimulus: https://jsbin.com/kajosolini/1/edit?html,js,output

(and this works with the browser's manual resize handle for instance)

Answer 25

Improved responsive pure JS solution with @DreamTeK's second option as basis

The following also takes care of the bottom padding as well as window resize. Like this, it's a near perfect solution for me. Big thanks to him.

let textareas = document.getElementsByClassName("auto-resize-textarea");

// Loop through textareas and add event listeners as well as other needed css attributes
for (const textarea of textareas) {
    // Initially set height as otherwise the textarea is not high enough on load
    textarea.style.height = textarea.scrollHeight.toString();
    // Hide scrollbar
    textarea.style.overflowY = 'hidden';
    // Call resize function with "this" context once during initialisation as it's too high otherwise
    resizeTextarea.call(textarea);
    // Add event listener to resize textarea on input
    textarea.addEventListener('input', resizeTextarea, false);
    // Also resize textarea on window resize event binding textarea to be "this"
    window.addEventListener('resize', resizeTextarea.bind(textarea), false);
}
function resizeTextarea() {
    // Textareas have default 2px padding and if not set it returns 0px
    let padding = window.getComputedStyle(this).getPropertyValue('padding-bottom');
    // getPropertyValue('padding-bottom') returns "px" at the end it needs to be removed to be added to scrollHeight
    padding = parseInt(padding.replace('px',''));
    this.style.height = "auto";
    this.style.height = (this.scrollHeight) + "px";
}

textarea {
  width:40%;
  padding:20px 25px;
  border-radius: 20px;
}

<textarea class="auto-resize-textarea">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua.</textarea>
<textarea placeholder="Type, paste, cut text here..." class="auto-resize-textarea"></textarea>

Note: there is a weird issue with jsfiddle where the textarea is too high and there is too much space at the bottom, but copying and pasting this exact code to an empty HTML-file works perfectly.

There is a small issue though when a scrollbar appears on the page and the textarea shrinks and wraps the text and creates a new line. The above function does not take that into account and I made a question, but no-one seems to know a fix. If you have suggestions to resolve the issue, I would be very glad.

Answer 26

This code works for pasting and select delete also.

onKeyPressTextMessage = function(){
   var textArea = event.currentTarget;
     textArea.style.height = 'auto';
     textArea.style.height = textArea.scrollHeight + 'px';
};

<textarea onkeyup="onKeyPressTextMessage(event)" name="welcomeContentTmpl" id="welcomeContent" onblur="onblurWelcomeTitle(event)" rows="2" cols="40" maxlength="320"></textarea>

Here is the JSFiddle

Answer 27

I recommend the javascript library from http://javierjulio.github.io/textarea-autosize.

Per comments, add example codeblock on plugin usage:

<textarea class="js-auto-size" rows="1"></textarea>

<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.1.0.min.js"></script>
<script src="jquery.textarea_autosize.min.js"></script>
<script>
$('textarea.js-auto-size').textareaAutoSize();
</script>

Minimum required CSS:

textarea {
  box-sizing: border-box;
  max-height: 160px; // optional but recommended
  min-height: 38px;
  overflow-x: hidden; // for Firefox (issue #5)
}

Answer 28

None of the answers seem to work. But this one works for me: https://coderwall.com/p/imkqoq/resize-textarea-to-fit-content

$('#content').on( 'change keyup keydown paste cut', 'textarea', function (){
    $(this).height(0).height(this.scrollHeight);
}).find( 'textarea' ).change();

Answer 29

MakeTextAreaResisable that uses qQuery

function MakeTextAreaResisable(id) {
    var o = $(id);
    o.css("overflow-y", "hidden");

    function ResizeTextArea() {
        o.height('auto');
        o.height(o[0].scrollHeight);
    }

    o.on('change', function (e) {
        ResizeTextArea();
    });

    o.on('cut paste drop keydown', function (e) {
        window.setTimeout(ResizeTextArea, 0);
    });

    o.focus();
    o.select();
    ResizeTextArea();
}

Answer 30

Accepted answer is working fine. But that is lot of code for this simple functionality. The below code will do the trick.

   $(document).on("keypress", "textarea", function (e) {
    var height = $(this).css("height");
    var iScrollHeight = $(this).prop("scrollHeight");
    $(this).css('height',iScrollHeight);
    });

Answer 31

An example implementation with React:

const {
  useLayoutEffect,
  useState,
  useRef
} = React;

const TextArea = () => {
  const ref = useRef();
  const [value, setValue] = useState('Some initial text that both wraps and uses\nnew\nlines');

  // This only tracks the auto-sized height so we can tell if the user has manually resized
  const autoHeight = useRef();

  useLayoutEffect(() => {
    if (!ref.current) {
      return;
    }

    if (
      autoHeight.current !== undefined &&
      ref.current.style.height !== autoHeight.current
    ) {
      // don't auto size if the user has manually changed the height
      return;
    }

    ref.current.style.height = "auto";
    ref.current.style.overflow = "hidden";
    const next = `${ref.current.scrollHeight}px`;
    ref.current.style.height = next;
    autoHeight.current = next;
    ref.current.style.overflow = "auto";
  }, [value, ref, autoHeight]);


  return (
    <textarea
      ref={ref}
      style={{
        resize: 'vertical',
        minHeight: '1em',
      }}
      value={value}
      onChange={event => setValue(event.target.value)}
    />
  );
}

ReactDOM.render(<TextArea />, document.getElementById('app'))

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/17.0.1/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react-dom/17.0.1/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>
<div id="app"></div>

Answer 32

If scrollHeight could be trusted, then:

textarea.onkeyup=function() {
  this.style.height='';
  this.rows=this.value.split('\n').length;
  this.style.height=this.scrollHeight+'px';
}

Answer 33

Here is what I did while using MVC HTML Helper for TextArea. I had quite a few of textarea elements so had to distinguish them using Model Id.

 @Html.TextAreaFor(m => m.Text, 2, 1, new { id = "text" + Model.Id, onkeyup = "resizeTextBox(" + Model.Id + ");" })

and in script added this:

   function resizeTextBox(ID) {            
        var text = document.getElementById('text' + ID);
        text.style.height = 'auto';
        text.style.height = text.scrollHeight + 'px';            
    }

I have tested it on IE10 and Firefox23

Answer 34

Native Javascript solution without flickering in Firefox and faster than method withclientHeight...

1) Add div.textarea selector to all your selectors containing textarea. Do not forget to add box-sizing: border-box;

2) Include this script:

function resizeAll()
{
   var textarea=document.querySelectorAll('textarea');
   for(var i=textarea.length-1; i>=0; i--)
      resize(textarea[i]);
}

function resize(textarea)
{
   var div = document.createElement("div");
   div.setAttribute("class","textarea");
   div.innerText=textarea.value+"\r\n";
   div.setAttribute("style","width:"+textarea.offsetWidth+'px;display:block;height:auto;left:0px;top:0px;position:fixed;z-index:-200;visibility:hidden;word-wrap:break-word;overflow:hidden;');
   textarea.form.appendChild(div);
   var h=div.offsetHeight;
   div.parentNode.removeChild(div);
   textarea.style.height=h+'px';
}

function resizeOnInput(e)
{
   var textarea=document.querySelectorAll('textarea');
   for(var i=textarea.length-1; i>=0; i--)
      textarea[i].addEventListener("input",function(e){resize(e.target); return false;},false);
}

window.addEventListener("resize",function(){resizeAll();}, false);
window.addEventListener("load",function(){resizeAll();}, false);
resizeOnInput();

Tested on IE11, Firefox and Chrome.

This solution creates div similar to your textarea including internal text and measures height.

Answer 35

The Best way I found:

$("textarea.auto-grow").each( function(){
    $(this).keyup(function(){
        $(this).height( $(this)[0].scrollHeight - Number( $(this).css("font-size").replace("px", "") ) );
    });
});

Other ways has a font-size bug.

Thats why this is the best.

Answer 36

This is a mixed JS/jQuery version of Moussawi7's answer.

$(function() {
  $("textarea.auto-grow").on("input", function() {
    var element = $(this)[0];
    element.style.height = "5px";
    element.style.height = (element.scrollHeight) + "px";
  });
});

And this one is Mystral's comment. It's more like jquery code.

$(function() {
  $("textarea.auto-grow").on("input", function() {
    $(this).css("height", "5px")
           .css("height", $(this).prop("scrollHeight") + "px");
  });
});

CSS:

<style>
  textarea {
    resize: none;
    overflow: auto;
    width: 100%;
    min-height: 50px;
    max-height: 150px;
  }
</style>

Html:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<textarea class="auto-grow"></textarea>

Answer 37

for Angular 2+, just do this

<textarea (keydown)="resize($event)"></textarea>


resize(e) {
    setTimeout(() => {
      e.target.style.height = 'auto';
      e.target.style.height = (e.target.scrollHeight)+'px';
    }, 0);
  }

textarea {
  resize: none;
  overflow: hidden;
}

Answer 38

I wanna use this

window.auto_grow = async element => {
    element.style.height = "5px";
    element.style.height = (element.scrollHeight) + "px";
}

and call it

<textarea oninput="window.auto_grow(this)" onfocus="window.auto_grow(this)"></textarea>

Answer 39

Dynamic textArea using pure css:

if you want to use only css you can also create your element like this:

function contentTransfer(){
  document.getElementsByClassName("container")[0].innerHTML = document.getElementById("myTextArea").innerHTML;
}

.custom_textArea{
  border: 1px solid lightGray;
  padding: 7px;
  border-radius: 7px;
  outline: none;
}

.custom_textArea:focus{
  border: 1px solid darkGray;
}

<p id="myTextArea" class="custom_textArea" contenteditable="true">my text</p>
<button onclick="contentTransfer()">get content</button>
<p class="container"></p>

Answer 40

I'm able to set the TextArea size in IE9 and Chrome with the following jQuery function. It binds to the textarea objects from the selector defined in the $(document).ready() function.

function autoResize(obj, size) {
    obj.keyup(function () {
        if ($(this).val().length > size-1) {
            $(this).val( function() {
                $(this).height(function() {
                    return this.scrollHeight + 13;
                });
                alert('The maximum comment length is '+size+' characters.');
                return $(this).val().substring(0, size-1);
            });
        }
        $(this).height(function() {
            if  ($(this).val() == '') {
                return 15;
            } else {
                $(this).height(15);
                return ($(this).attr('scrollHeight')-2);
            }
        });
    }).keyup();
}

In my $(document).ready() function I have the following call for all of my textarea calls on this page.

$('textarea').each( function() {
        autoResize($(this), 250);
});

Where 250 is the character limit on my text area. This will grow as large as the text size will allow (based on your character count and font size). It will also shrink your text area appropriately when you remove characters from your textarea or if the user pastes too much text initially.

Answer 41

I have tested script in common browsers, and it failed in Chrome and Safari. It is because of constantly updatable scrollHeight variable.

I have applied DisgruntledGoat script using jQuery and added chrome fix

function fitToContent(/* JQuery */text, /* Number */maxHeight) {
    var adjustedHeight = text.height();
    var relative_error = parseInt(text.attr('relative_error'));
    if (!maxHeight || maxHeight > adjustedHeight) {
        adjustedHeight = Math.max(text[0].scrollHeight, adjustedHeight);
        if (maxHeight)
            adjustedHeight = Math.min(maxHeight, adjustedHeight);
        if ((adjustedHeight - relative_error) > text.height()) {
            text.css('height', (adjustedHeight - relative_error) + "px");
            // chrome fix
            if (text[0].scrollHeight != adjustedHeight) {
                var relative = text[0].scrollHeight - adjustedHeight;
                if (relative_error != relative) {
                    text.attr('relative_error', relative + relative_error);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

function autoResizeText(/* Number */maxHeight) {
    var resize = function() {
        fitToContent($(this), maxHeight);
    };
    $("textarea").attr('relative_error', 0);
    $("textarea").each(resize);
    $("textarea").keyup(resize).keydown(resize);
}

Answer 42

You can use this code:

Coffescript:

jQuery.fn.extend autoHeightTextarea: ->
  autoHeightTextarea_ = (element) ->
    jQuery(element).css(
      'height': 'auto'
      'overflow-y': 'hidden').height element.scrollHeight

  @each ->
    autoHeightTextarea_(@).on 'input', ->
      autoHeightTextarea_ @

$('textarea_class_or_id`').autoHeightTextarea()

Javascript

jQuery.fn.extend({
  autoHeightTextarea: function() {
    var autoHeightTextarea_;
    autoHeightTextarea_ = function(element) {
      return jQuery(element).css({
        'height': 'auto',
        'overflow-y': 'hidden'
      }).height(element.scrollHeight);
    };
    return this.each(function() {
      return autoHeightTextarea_(this).on('input', function() {
        return autoHeightTextarea_(this);
      });
    });
  }
});

$('textarea_class_or_id`').autoHeightTextarea();

Answer 43

For those who want the textarea to be auto resized on both width and height:

HTML:

<textarea class='textbox'></textarea>
<div>
  <span class='tmp_textbox'></span>
</div>

CSS:

.textbox,
.tmp_textbox {
  font-family: 'Arial';
  font-size: 12px;
  resize: none;
  overflow:hidden;
}

.tmp_textbox {
  display: none;
}

jQuery:

$(function(){
  //alert($('.textbox').css('padding'))
  $('.textbox').on('keyup change', checkSize)
  $('.textbox').trigger('keyup')

  function checkSize(){
    var str = $(this).val().replace(/\r?\n/g, '<br/>');
    $('.tmp_textbox').html( str )
    console.log($(this).val())

    var strArr = str.split('<br/>')
    var row = strArr.length
    $('.textbox').attr('rows', row)
    $('.textbox').width( $('.tmp_textbox').width() + parseInt($('.textbox').css('padding')) * 2 + 10 )
  }
})

Codepen:

http://codepen.io/anon/pen/yNpvJJ

Cheers,

Answer 44

The jQuery solution is to set the height of the textarea to 'auto', check the scrollHeight and then adapt the height of the textarea to that, every time a textarea changes (JSFiddle):

$('textarea').on( 'input', function(){
    $(this).height( 'auto' ).height( this.scrollHeight );
});

If you're dynamically adding textareas (through AJAX or whatever), you can add this in your $(document).ready to make sure all textareas with class 'autoheight' are kept to the same height as their content:

$(document).on( 'input', 'textarea.autoheight', function() {
    $(this).height( 'auto' ).height( this.scrollHeight );
});

Tested and working in Chrome, Firefox, Opera and IE. Also supports cut and paste, long words, etc.

Answer 45

You can use this piece of code to compute the number of rows a textarea needs:

textarea.rows = 1;
    if (textarea.scrollHeight > textarea.clientHeight)
      textarea.rows = textarea.scrollHeight / textarea.clientHeight;

Compute it on input and window:resize events to get auto-resize effect. Example in Angular:

Template code:

<textarea rows="1" reAutoWrap></textarea>

auto-wrap.directive.ts

import { Directive, ElementRef, HostListener } from '@angular/core';

@Directive({
  selector: 'textarea[reAutoWrap]',
})
export class AutoWrapDirective {

  private readonly textarea: HTMLTextAreaElement;

  constructor(el: ElementRef) {
    this.textarea = el.nativeElement;
  }

  @HostListener('input') onInput() {
    this.resize();
  }

  @HostListener('window:resize') onChange() {
    this.resize();
  }

  private resize() {
    this.textarea.rows = 1;
    if (this.textarea.scrollHeight > this.textarea.clientHeight)
      this.textarea.rows = this.textarea.scrollHeight / this.textarea.clientHeight;
  }

}

Answer 46

$('textarea').bind('keyup change', function() {
    var $this = $(this), $offset = this.offsetHeight;
    $offset > $this.height() && $offset < 300 ?
        $this.css('height ', $offset)
            .attr('rows', $this.val().split('\n').length)
            .css({'height' : $this.attr('scrollHeight'),'overflow' : 'hidden'}) :
        $this.css('overflow','auto');
});

Answer 47

You don't need overly complicated calculations or style manipulations. Here is a clear and concise way to do it:

1. Add oninput event listener to the textarea element.
2. Inside that listener, set rows attribute via currentTarget

const el = document.createElement('textarea');

const handleInput = (event) => {
  const lines = event.currentTarget.value.split(/\r\n|\r|\n/).length
  event.currentTarget.setAttribute('rows', lines.toString());
}

el.addEventListener('input', handleInput);

document.body.appendChild(el);

You can control the initial height using the very same way:

1. Get the content
2. Calculate the number of lines
3. Set the rows attribute on the element.

const el = document.createElement('textarea');

const content = 'Some Content';
const lines = content.split(/\r\n|\r|\n/).length
el.setAttribute('rows', lines.toString());
el.innerHTML = content;