How to make a sticky footer using flexbox in IE11?

Question

I\'m trying to make a simple design with flexbox but I\'m having trouble with IE11. Basically, I want a footer that sticks to the bottom only if the content is not high enou

Answer 1

On main, instead of flex: 1 use flex: auto. That should be all you need.

---

The flex: 1 shorthand rule breaks down to:

• flex-grow: 1
• flex-shrink: 1
• flex-basis: 0

The flex: auto shorthand rule breaks down to:

• flex-grow: 1
• flex-shrink: 1
• flex-basis: auto

IE has trouble parsing flex-basis: 0.

More information:

• flex property not working in IE

Answer 2

This answer (@ceindeg answer) partially worked for me, but shrunk the parent container size, and I had a background I wanted to position at the bottom.

---

So I just went to position: absolute for the footer only for IE.

You can use a media-query only for IE, so the other browsers work fine (take a look here: How to target only IE (any version) within a stylesheet?).

In my case, I wanted to aim IE10 and IE11, so I used this:

@media all and (-ms-high-contrast: none), (-ms-high-contrast: active) {
  footer {
   position: absolute;
   bottom: 0;
  }


  .parent-container {
    position: relative
    // Add some padding-bottom to the parent container so it won't be glued together
    padding-bottom: 30px;
  }
}

Answer 3

A solution that really helped me (may not be applicable in all cases) is adding an arbitrary fixed height in pixels - the min-height overrides the fixed height so there's no cropped content. Here's a CSS example:

.fullheight {
    min-height: 100vh;
    height: 200px; /*IE 11 flexbox min-height fix*/
    display: flex;
    align-items: center;
    justify-content: center;
    flex-wrap: wrap;
    align-content: center;
}

Answer 4

IE has a min-height bug and needs display: flex on the flex column containers parent, in this case the html

Fiddle demo

Update your CSS like this

*,
*:after,
*:before {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}
html, body {
  margin: 0;
  display: flex;
}
body {
  flex-direction: column;
  min-height: 100vh;
}
main {
  flex-grow: 1;
}

<header>
  Header
</header>
<main>
  <p>Main</p>
  <p>Main</p>
  <p>Main</p>
  <p>Main</p>
  <p>Main</p>
</main>
<footer>
  Footer
</footer>

Answer 5

Since this might be a desired solution: if you don't necessarily want grow the main tag but still align the footer at the bottom:

html, body {
  margin: 0;
  display: flex;
}
html {
  height: 100%;
}
body {
  flex-flow: column nowrap;
  flex-grow: 1;
}
footer {
  margin-top: auto;
}

<header>
  Header
</header>
<main>
  <p>Main</p>
  <p>Main</p>
  <p>Main</p>
  <p>Main</p>
  <p>Main</p>
</main>
<footer>
  Footer
</footer>