Flex sidebar: how to grow to 100% of height

Question

I´m building a sidebar using CSS flex and I need it to grow vertically to fill the whole screen vertical height. Here is a skeleton of what I´m doing.

JSFiddle here

Answer 1

The proper usage of Flexbox, is to make the app take full height by either use height: 100vh, or give html/body a height, html, body { height: 100% } so the app's height work as expected.

Second, as you use align-items: flex-start all items will initially align at the top, but by adding align-self: stretch to the sidebar, it will fill its parent's height.

Note, for flex row item you should not use height: 100%, you should use the align-* properties.

Note 2, the set flex: 1 on content-header and content-main doesn't have any affect, unless their parent content has a height higher than their summed height. i.e. if to change the app's align-items to stretch (and if, the align-self on sidebar can be removed)

Note 3, the flex: 1 won't work properly in IE, use flex-grow: 1 instead, or assign all values, where flex-basis should be auto, i.e. flex: 1 1 auto

Stack snippet

body {
  margin: 0;
}
.app {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: row;
  align-items: flex-start;
  height: 100vh;                 /*  changed  */
  width: 100%;
}

.sidebar {
  background-color: red;
  align-self: stretch;            /*  added  */
}

.content {
  width: 100%;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}

.content-header {
  flex: 1;                        /*  for IE, "flex-grow: 1" or "flex: 1 1 auto" 
 */
  background-color: grey;
}

.content-main {
  flex: 1;                        /*  for IE, "flex-grow: 1" or "flex: 1 1 auto" 
 */
  background-color: yellow;
}

  

    This is sidebar
  
  

    

      Content Header
    
    

      This is the main content