How to put scroll bar only for modal-body?

Question

You have to set the height of the .modal-body in and give it overflow-y: auto. Also reset .modal-dialog overflow value to initial.

See the working sample:

http://www.bootply.com/T0yF2ZNTUd

.modal{
    display: block !important; /* I added this to see the modal, you don't need this */
}

/* Important part */
.modal-dialog{
    overflow-y: initial !important
}
.modal-body{
    height: 80vh;
    overflow-y: auto;
}

If you're only supporting IE 9 or higher, you can use this CSS that will smoothly scale to the size of the window. You may need to tweak the "200px" though, depending on the height of your header or footer.

.modal-body{
    max-height: calc(100vh - 200px);
    overflow-y: auto;
}

Problem solved with combine solution @carlos calla and @jonathan marston.

    /* Important part */
.modal-dialog{
    overflow-y: initial !important
}
.modal-body{
    max-height: calc(100vh - 200px);
    overflow-y: auto;
}

For Bootstrap versions >= 4.3

Bootstrap 4.3 added new built-in scroll feature to modals. This makes only the modal-body content scroll if the size of the content would otherwise make the page scroll. To use it, just add the class modal-dialog-scrollable to the same div that has the modal-dialog class.

Here is an example:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.3.1/js/bootstrap.bundle.min.js"></script>
<link href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.3.1/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<!-- Button trigger modal -->
<button type="button" class="btn btn-primary" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#exampleModalScrollable">
  Launch demo modal
</button>

<!-- Modal -->
<div class="modal fade" id="exampleModalScrollable" tabindex="-1" role="dialog" aria-labelledby="exampleModalScrollableTitle" aria-hidden="true">
  <div class="modal-dialog modal-dialog-scrollable" role="document">
    <div class="modal-content">
      <div class="modal-header">
        <h5 class="modal-title" id="exampleModalScrollableTitle">Modal title</h5>
        <button type="button" class="close" data-dismiss="modal" aria-label="Close">
          <span aria-hidden="true">&times;</span>
        </button>
      </div>
      <div class="modal-body">
        the<br>quick<br>brown<br>fox<br>
        the<br>quick<br>brown<br>fox<br>
        the<br>quick<br>brown<br>fox<br>
        the<br>quick<br>brown<br>fox<br>
        the<br>quick<br>brown<br>fox<br>
        the<br>quick<br>brown<br>fox<br>
        the<br>quick<br>brown<br>fox<br>
        the<br>quick<br>brown<br>fox<br>
        the<br>quick<br>brown<br>fox<br>
        the<br>quick<br>brown<br>fox<br>
      </div>
      <div class="modal-footer">
        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" data-dismiss="modal">Close</button>
        <button type="button" class="btn btn-primary">Save changes</button>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Adding on to Carlos Calla's great answer.

The height of .modal-body must be set, BUT you can use media queries to make sure it's appropriate for the screen size.

.modal-body{
    height: 250px;
    overflow-y: auto;
}

@media (min-height: 500px) {
    .modal-body { height: 400px; }
}

@media (min-height: 800px) {
    .modal-body { height: 600px; }
}

Optional: If you don't want the modal to exceed the window height and use a scrollbar in the .modal-body, you can use this responsive solution. See a working demo here: http://codepen.io/dimbslmh/full/mKfCc/

function setModalMaxHeight(element) {
  this.$element     = $(element);
  this.$content     = this.$element.find('.modal-content');
  var borderWidth   = this.$content.outerHeight() - this.$content.innerHeight();
  var dialogMargin  = $(window).width() > 767 ? 60 : 20;
  var contentHeight = $(window).height() - (dialogMargin + borderWidth);
  var headerHeight  = this.$element.find('.modal-header').outerHeight() || 0;
  var footerHeight  = this.$element.find('.modal-footer').outerHeight() || 0;
  var maxHeight     = contentHeight - (headerHeight + footerHeight);

  this.$content.css({
      'overflow': 'hidden'
  });

  this.$element
    .find('.modal-body').css({
      'max-height': maxHeight,
      'overflow-y': 'auto'
  });
}

$('.modal').on('show.bs.modal', function() {
  $(this).show();
  setModalMaxHeight(this);
});

$(window).resize(function() {
  if ($('.modal.in').length != 0) {
    setModalMaxHeight($('.modal.in'));
  }
});

I know this is an old topic but this may help someone else.

I was able to make the body scroll by making the modal-dialog element position fixed. And since I would never know the exact height of the browser window, I took the information I was sure about, the height of the header and the footer. I was then able to make the modal-body element's top and bottom margins match those heights. This then produced the result I was looking for. I threw together a fiddle to show my work.

also, if you want a full screen dialog just un-comment the width:auto; inside the .modal-dialog.full-screen section.

https://jsfiddle.net/lot224/znrktLej/

And here is the css that I used to modify the bootstrap dialog.

.modal-dialog.full-screen {
    position:fixed;
    //width:auto;  // uncomment to make the width based on the left/right attributes.
    margin:auto;                        
    left:0px;
    right:0px;
    top:0px;
    bottom:0px;
}

.modal-dialog.full-screen .modal-content {
      position:absolute;
      left:10px;
      right:10px;
      top:10px;
      bottom:10px;
}

.modal-dialog.full-screen .modal-content .modal-header {
        height:55px;  // adjust as needed.
}

.modal-dialog.full-screen .modal-content .modal-body {
        overflow-y: auto;
          position: absolute;
          top: 0;
          bottom: 0;
        left:0;
        right:0;
          margin-top: 55px; // .modal-header height
          margin-bottom: 80px;  // .modal-footer height
}

.modal-dialog.full-screen .modal-content .modal-footer {
        height:80px;  // adjust as needed.
        position:absolute;
        bottom:0;
        left:0;
        right:0;
}