How to scroll to top of page with JavaScript/jQuery?

Cross-browser, pure JavaScript solution:

document.body.scrollTop = document.documentElement.scrollTop = 0;

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You almost got it - you need to set the scrollTop on body, not window:

$(function() {
   $('body').scrollTop(0);
});

EDIT:

Maybe you can add a blank anchor to the top of the page:

$(function() {
   $('<a name="top"/>').insertBefore($('body').children().eq(0));
   window.location.hash = 'top';
});

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Wow, I'm 9 years late to this question. Here you go:

Add this code to your onload.

// This prevents the page from scrolling down to where it was previously.
if ('scrollRestoration' in history) {
    history.scrollRestoration = 'manual';
}
// This is needed if the user scrolls down during page load and you want to make sure the page is scrolled to the top once it's fully loaded. This has Cross-browser support.
window.scrollTo(0,0);

To run it on window load just put it wrap it like this (assumes you have JQuery referenced)

$(function() {
  // put the code here
});

history.scrollRestoration Browser support:

Chrome: supported (since 46)

Firefox: supported (since 46)

Edge: supported (since 79)

IE: not supported

Opera: supported (since 33)

Safari: supported

For IE if you want to re-scroll to the top AFTER it autoscrolls down then this worked for me:

var isIE11 = !!window.MSInputMethodContext && !!document.documentMode;
if(isIE11) {
    setTimeout(function(){ window.scrollTo(0, 0); }, 300);  // adjust time according to your page. The better solution would be to possibly tie into some event and trigger once the autoscrolling goes to the top.
} 

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UPDATE

Going to top of the page with a scroll effect is a bit more easier in javascript now with:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/scroll

There are 2 ways to use scroll API.

This is the method I recommend. Using an option object:

window.scroll(options)

This is a better option since you can define a behavior prop which applies a built-in easing animation.

window.scroll({
 top: 0, 
 left: 0, 
 behavior: 'smooth' 
});

The other method is to use an x and y coordinates.

window.scroll(x-coord, y-coord)

x-coord - is the pixel along the horizontal axis of the document that you want displayed in the upper left.

y-coord - is the pixel along the vertical axis of the document that you want displayed in the upper left.

OLD ANSWER DO NOT USE

This is our vanilla javascript implementation. It has a simple easing effect so that the user doesn't get shocked after clicking the To Top button.

Its very small and gets even smaller when minified. Devs looking for an alternative to the jquery method but want the same results can try this.

JS

document.querySelector("#to-top").addEventListener("click", function(){

    var toTopInterval = setInterval(function(){

        var supportedScrollTop = document.body.scrollTop > 0 ? document.body : document.documentElement;

        if (supportedScrollTop.scrollTop > 0) {
            supportedScrollTop.scrollTop = supportedScrollTop.scrollTop - 50;
        }

        if (supportedScrollTop.scrollTop < 1) {
            clearInterval(toTopInterval);
        }

    }, 10);

},false);

HTML

<button id="to-top">To Top</button>

Cheers!

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Is there a way to PREVENT the browser scrolling to its past position, or to re-scroll to the top AFTER it does its thing?

The following jquery solution works for me:

$(window).unload(function() {
    $('body').scrollTop(0);
});

---

Here's a pure JavaScript animated scroll version for no-jQuery'ers :D

var stepTime = 20;
var docBody = document.body;
var focElem = document.documentElement;

var scrollAnimationStep = function (initPos, stepAmount) {
    var newPos = initPos - stepAmount > 0 ? initPos - stepAmount : 0;

    docBody.scrollTop = focElem.scrollTop = newPos;

    newPos && setTimeout(function () {
        scrollAnimationStep(newPos, stepAmount);
    }, stepTime);
}

var scrollTopAnimated = function (speed) {
    var topOffset = docBody.scrollTop || focElem.scrollTop;
    var stepAmount = topOffset;

    speed && (stepAmount = (topOffset * stepTime)/speed);

    scrollAnimationStep(topOffset, stepAmount);
};

And then:

<button onclick="scrollTopAnimated(1000)">Scroll Top</button>

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This works for me:

window.onload = function() {
    // short timeout
    setTimeout(function() {
        $(document.body).scrollTop(0);
    }, 15);
};

Uses a short setTimeout inside the onload to give the browser a chance to do the scroll.

---

You can use with jQuery

jQuery(window).load(function(){

    jQuery("html,body").animate({scrollTop: 100}, 1000);

});

---

Use the following function

window.scrollTo(xpos, ypos)

Here xpos is Required. The coordinate to scroll to, along the x-axis (horizontal), in pixels

ypos is also Required. The coordinate to scroll to, along the y-axis (vertical), in pixels

---

A modern solution in 2021

document.body.scrollIntoView({behavior: "smooth"});

Works with every browser including IE (older browsers don't support smooth scrolling).

https://i.stack.imgur.com/K5xwc.png

---

$(function() {
    // the element inside of which we want to scroll
        var $elem = $('#content');

        // show the buttons
    $('#nav_up').fadeIn('slow');
    $('#nav_down').fadeIn('slow');  

        // whenever we scroll fade out both buttons
    $(window).bind('scrollstart', function(){
        $('#nav_up,#nav_down').stop().animate({'opacity':'0.2'});
    });
        // ... and whenever we stop scrolling fade in both buttons
    $(window).bind('scrollstop', function(){
        $('#nav_up,#nav_down').stop().animate({'opacity':'1'});
    });

        // clicking the "down" button will make the page scroll to the $elem's height
    $('#nav_down').click(
        function (e) {
            $('html, body').animate({scrollTop: $elem.height()}, 800);
        }
    );
        // clicking the "up" button will make the page scroll to the top of the page
    $('#nav_up').click(
        function (e) {
            $('html, body').animate({scrollTop: '0px'}, 800);
        }
    );
 });

Use This

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The following code works in Firefox, Chrome and Safari, but I was unable to test this in Internet Explorer. Can someone test it, and then edit my answer or comment on it?

$(document).scrollTop(0);

---

Why don't you just use some reference element at the very beginning of your html file, like

<div id="top"></div>

and then, when the page loads, simply do

$(document).ready(function(){

    top.location.href = '#top';

});

If the browser scrolls after this function fires, you simply do

$(window).load(function(){

    top.location.href = '#top';

});

---

My pure (animated) Javascript solution:

function gototop() {
    if (window.scrollY>0) {
        window.scrollTo(0,window.scrollY-20)
        setTimeout("gototop()",10)
    }
}

Explanation:

window.scrollY is a variable maintained by the browser of the amount of pixels from the top that the window has been scrolled by.

window.scrollTo(x,y) is a function that scrolls the window a specific amount of pixels on the x axis and on the y axis.

Thus, window.scrollTo(0,window.scrollY-20) moves the page 20 pixels towards the top.

The setTimeout calls the function again in 10 milliseconds so that we can then move it another 20 pixels (animated), and the if statement checks if we still need to scroll.

---

Cross-browser scroll to top:

        if($('body').scrollTop()>0){
            $('body').scrollTop(0);         //Chrome,Safari
        }else{
            if($('html').scrollTop()>0){    //IE, FF
                $('html').scrollTop(0);
            }
        } 

Cross-browser scroll to an element with id = div_id:

        if($('body').scrollTop()>$('#div_id').offset().top){
            $('body').scrollTop($('#div_id').offset().top);         //Chrome,Safari
        }else{
            if($('html').scrollTop()>$('#div_id').offset().top){    //IE, FF
                $('html').scrollTop($('#div_id').offset().top);
            }
        } 

---

If you're in quircks mode (thanks @Niet the Dark Absol):

document.body.scrollTop = document.documentElement.scrollTop = 0;

If you're in strict mode:

document.documentElement.scrollTop = 0;

No need for jQuery here.

---

In my case body didn't worked:

$('body').scrollTop(0);

But HTML worked:

$('html').scrollTop(0);

---

To answer your edited-in question, you could register the onscroll handler like so:

document.documentElement.onscroll = document.body.onscroll = function() {
    this.scrollTop = 0;
    this.onscroll = null;
}

This will make it so that the first attempt at scrolling (which is likely the automatic one done by the browser) will be effectively cancelled.

---

This is working:

jQuery(document).ready(function() {
     jQuery("html").animate({ scrollTop: 0 }, "fast");
});

---

Combination of these two helped me. None of the other answers helped me since i had a sidenav that was not scrolling.

 setTimeout(function () {
        window.scroll({
                        top: 0,
                        left: 0,
                        behavior: 'smooth'
                    });

    document.body.scrollTop = document.documentElement.scrollTop = 0;

}, 15);

---

var totop = $('#totop');
totop.click(function(){
 $('html, body').stop(true,true).animate({scrollTop:0}, 1000);
 return false;
});

$(window).scroll(function(){
 if ($(this).scrollTop() > 100){ 
  totop.fadeIn();
 }else{
  totop.fadeOut();
 }
});

<img id="totop" src="img/arrow_up.png" title="Click to go Up" style="display:none;position:fixed;bottom:10px;right:10px;cursor:pointer;cursor:hand;"/>

---

without animation, just scroll(0, 0) (vanilla JS)

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If anyone is using angular and material design with sidenav. This will send you to to the top of the page:

let ele = document.getElementsByClassName('md-sidenav-content');
    let eleArray = <Element[]>Array.prototype.slice.call(ele);
    eleArray.map( val => {
        val.scrollTop = document.documentElement.scrollTop = 0;
    });

---

Seeint the hash should do the job. If you have a header, you can use

window.location.href = "#headerid";

otherwise, the # alone will work

window.location.href = "#";

And as it get written into the url, it'll stay if you refresh.

In fact, you don't event need JavaScript for that if you want to do it on an onclick event, you should just put a link arround you element and give it # as href.

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First add a blank anchor tag to the place where you want to go

<a href="#topAnchor"></a> 

Now add a function in header section

 function GoToTop() {
            var urllocation = location.href;
            if (urllocation.indexOf("#topAnchor") > -1) {
                window.location.hash = "topAnchor";
            } else {
                return false;
            }
        }

finally add an onload event to the body tag

<body onload="GoToTop()">

---

A generic version that works for any X and Y value, and is the same as the window.scrollTo api, just with the addition of scrollDuration.

*A generic version matching the window.scrollTo browser api**

function smoothScrollTo(x, y, scrollDuration) {
    x = Math.abs(x || 0);
    y = Math.abs(y || 0);
    scrollDuration = scrollDuration || 1500;

    var currentScrollY = window.scrollY,
        currentScrollX = window.scrollX,
        dirY = y > currentScrollY ? 1 : -1,
        dirX = x > currentScrollX ? 1 : -1,
        tick = 16.6667, // 1000 / 60
        scrollStep = Math.PI / ( scrollDuration / tick ),
        cosParameterY = currentScrollY / 2,
        cosParameterX = currentScrollX / 2,
        scrollCount = 0,
        scrollMargin;

    function step() {        
        scrollCount = scrollCount + 1;  

        if ( window.scrollX !== x ) {
            scrollMargin = cosParameterX + dirX * cosParameterX * Math.cos( scrollCount * scrollStep );
            window.scrollTo( 0, ( currentScrollX - scrollMargin ) );
        } 

        if ( window.scrollY !== y ) {
            scrollMargin = cosParameterY + dirY * cosParameterY * Math.cos( scrollCount * scrollStep );
            window.scrollTo( 0, ( currentScrollY - scrollMargin ) );
        } 

        if (window.scrollX !== x || window.scrollY !== y) {
            requestAnimationFrame(step);
        }
    }

    step();
}

---

 <script>
  sessionStorage.scrollDirection = 1;//create a session variable 
  var pageScroll = function() {
  window.scrollBy ({
   top: sessionStorage.scrollDirection,
   left: 0,
   behavior: 'smooth'
   });
   if($(window).scrollTop() + $(window).height() > $(document).height() - 1)
  {    
    sessionStorage.scrollDirection= Number(sessionStorage.scrollDirection )-300;
    setTimeout(pageScroll,50);//
   }
   else{
   sessionStorage.scrollDirection=Number(sessionStorage.scrollDirection )+1
   setTimeout(pageScroll,300); 
  }
};
pageScroll();
</script>

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I remember seeing this posted somewhere else (I couldn't find where), but this works really well:

setTimeout(() => {
    window.scrollTo(0, 0);
}, 0);

It's weird, but the way it works is based off of the way JavaScript's stack queue works. The full explanation is found here in the Zero Delays section.

The basic idea is that the time for setTimeout doesn't actually specify the set amount of time it will wait, but the minimum amount of time it will wait. So when you tell it to wait 0ms, the browser runs all the other queued processes (like scrolling the window to where you were last) and then executes the callback.

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