flex

Summary

The flex CSS property is a shorthand property specifying the ability of a flex item to alter its dimensions to fill available space. Flex items can be stretched to use available space proportional to their flex grow factor or their flex shrink factor to prevent overflow.

See Using CSS flexible boxes for more properties and information.

Syntax

/* 0 0 auto */
flex: none;

/* One value, unitless number: flex-grow */
flex: 2;

/* One value, width/height: flex-basis */
flex: 10em;
flex: 30px;
flex: auto;
flex: content;

/* Two values: flex-grow | flex-basis */
flex: 1 30px;

/* Two values: flex-grow | flex-shrink */
flex: 2 2;

/* Three values: flex-grow | flex-shrink | flex-basis */
flex: 2 2 10%;

/* Global values */
flex: inherit;
flex: initial;
flex: unset;

Values

<'flex-grow'>

Defines the flex-grow of the flex item. See <number> for more details. Negative values are considered invalid. Defaults to 1 when omitted.

<'flex-shrink'>

Defines the flex-shrink of the flex item. See <number> for more details. Negative values are considered invalid. Defaults to 1 when omitted.

<'flex-basis'>

Defines the flex-basis of the flex item. Any value valid for width and height properties are accepted. A preferred size of 0 must have a unit to avoid being interpreted as a flexibility. Defaults to 0% when omitted.

none

This keyword computes to 0 0 auto.

Formal syntax

none | [ <'flex-grow'> <'flex-shrink'>? || <'flex-basis'> ]

Example

#flex-container {
	display: -webkit-flex;
	display: flex;
	-webkit-flex-direction: row;
	flex-direction: row;
}

#flex-container > .flex-item {
	-webkit-flex: auto;
	flex: auto;
}

#flex-container > .raw-item {
	width: 5rem;
}

<div id="flex-container">
    <div class="flex-item" id="flex">Flex box (click to toggle raw box)</div>
    <div class="raw-item" id="raw">Raw box</div>
</div>

var flex = document.getElementById("flex");
var raw = document.getElementById("raw");
flex.addEventListener("click", function() {
	raw.style.display = raw.style.display == "none" ? "block" : "none";
});

#flex-container {
	width: 100%;
	font-family: Consolas, Arial, sans-serif;
}

#flex-container > div {
	border: 1px solid #f00;
	padding: 1rem;
}

#flex-container > .raw-item {
	border: 1px solid #000;
}

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

[1] In Gecko 18.0 (Firefox 18.0 / Thunderbird 18.0 / SeaMonkey 2.15) and 19.0 (Firefox 19.0 / Thunderbird 19.0 / SeaMonkey 2.16) flexbox support is hidden behind the about:config preference layout.css.flexbox.enabled, defaulting to false.

[2] Multi-line flexbox is supported since Gecko 28.0 (Firefox 28.0 / Thunderbird 28.0 / SeaMonkey 2.25).

In addition to the unprefixed support, Gecko 48.0 (Firefox 48.0 / Thunderbird 48.0 / SeaMonkey 2.45) added support for a -webkit prefixed version of the property for web compatibility reasons behind the preference layout.css.prefixes.webkit, defaulting to false. Since Gecko 49.0 (Firefox 49.0 / Thunderbird 49.0 / SeaMonkey 2.46) the preference defaults to true.

[3] Internet Explorer 10-11 (but not 12+) ignores uses of calc() in the flex-basis part of the flex syntax. This can be worked around by using the longhand properties instead of the shorthand. See Flexbug #8 for more info. Furthermore a flex declaration with a unitless value in its flex-basis part is considered syntactically invalid in those versions and will thus be ignored. A workaround is to always include a unit in the flex-basis part of the flex shorthand value. See Flexbug #4 for more info.

See also

• Using CSS flexible boxes