how can i change the gap of only one element in a flexbox?

Question

i am creating something with css flexbox and use gap to give spacing between elements but now i want to change the spacing of only one element like

.container{
  display: flex;
  gap: 20px;
}

.items{
  width: 100px; 
  height: 100px;
  background: red;
  
}

.item-4{
  background: blue;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="items item-1"></div>
  <div class="items item-2"></div>
  <div class="items item-3"></div>
  <div class="items item-4"></div>
  <div class="items item-5"></div>
  <div class="items item-6"></div>
</div>

Now I want to change the gap of blue box to 5px from 20px is there any way to do this

Answer 1

• The gap property only applies to flex-parents, not flex-items (flex-parents use it to control the gap between their child flex-items).

  • _{(The gap property also applies to display: grid;, but that's off-topic in this QA)}

• To adjust the spacing of flex-items use an overridden margin property instead.

  • For flex-direction: horizontal you'll want to set margin-left and margin-right (or margin-inline-start and margin-inline-end).

  • For flex-direction: vertical you'll want to set margin-top and margin-bottom (or margin-block-start and margin-block-end).

  • To have a larger effective gap then set any positive margin value.

    • e.g. with gap: 5px and margin-left: 1px then the effective gap to the left will be 6px.

  • To have a smaller effective gap then set a negative margin value.

    • e.g. with gap: 5px and margin-left: -1px then the effective gap to the left will be 4px.

  • This approach won't work for items with margin: auto, but that's okay because gap: isn't useful with auto margins anyway.

  • Don't forget that you can also use calc and --custom-properties to make the CSS easier to read, and to mix units (e.g. 3.2em margin with a 10px effective gap adjustment).

---

In your case, there's 20px on either side of your items, so applying a margin-left of -15px will give you a 5px left gap, and a margin-right of -15px will give you a 5px right gap.

Which looks like this:

---

Like so:

.container{
  display: flex;
  gap: 20px;
}

.items{
  width: 100px; 
  height: 100px;
  background: red;
  
}

.item-4 {
  background: blue;
  margin-left: -15px; /* Adapt 20px gap to 5px */
  margin-right: -15px; /* Adapt 20px gap to 5px */
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="items item-1"></div>
  <div class="items item-2"></div>
  <div class="items item-3"></div>
  <div class="items item-4"></div>
  <div class="items item-5"></div>
  <div class="items item-6"></div>
</div>