How to scroll to an element inside a div?

Question

You need to get the top offset of the element you'd like to scroll into view, relative to its parent (the scrolling div container):

var myElement = document.getElementById('element_within_div');
var topPos = myElement.offsetTop;

The variable topPos is now set to the distance between the top of the scrolling div and the element you wish to have visible (in pixels).

Now we tell the div to scroll to that position using scrollTop:

document.getElementById('scrolling_div').scrollTop = topPos;

If you're using the prototype JS framework, you'd do the same thing like this:

var posArray = $('element_within_div').positionedOffset();
$('scrolling_div').scrollTop = posArray[1];

Again, this will scroll the div so that the element you wish to see is exactly at the top (or if that's not possible, scrolled as far down as it can so it's visible).

You would have to find the position of the element in the DIV you want to scroll to, and set the scrollTop property.

divElem.scrollTop = 0;

Update:

Sample code to move up or down

  function move_up() {
    document.getElementById('divElem').scrollTop += 10;
  }

  function move_down() {
    document.getElementById('divElem').scrollTop -= 10;
  }

Method 1 - Smooth scrolling to an element inside an element

var box = document.querySelector('.box'),
    targetElm = document.querySelector('.boxChild'); // <-- Scroll to here within ".box"

document.querySelector('button').addEventListener('click', function(){
   scrollToElm( box, targetElm , 600 );   
});


/////////////

function scrollToElm(container, elm, duration){
  var pos = getRelativePos(elm);
  scrollTo( container, pos.top , 2);  // duration in seconds
}

function getRelativePos(elm){
  var pPos = elm.parentNode.getBoundingClientRect(), // parent pos
      cPos = elm.getBoundingClientRect(), // target pos
      pos = {};

  pos.top    = cPos.top    - pPos.top + elm.parentNode.scrollTop,
  pos.right  = cPos.right  - pPos.right,
  pos.bottom = cPos.bottom - pPos.bottom,
  pos.left   = cPos.left   - pPos.left;

  return pos;
}
    
function scrollTo(element, to, duration, onDone) {
    var start = element.scrollTop,
        change = to - start,
        startTime = performance.now(),
        val, now, elapsed, t;

    function animateScroll(){
        now = performance.now();
        elapsed = (now - startTime)/1000;
        t = (elapsed/duration);

        element.scrollTop = start + change * easeInOutQuad(t);

        if( t < 1 )
            window.requestAnimationFrame(animateScroll);
        else
            onDone && onDone();
    };

    animateScroll();
}

function easeInOutQuad(t){ return t<.5 ? 2*t*t : -1+(4-2*t)*t };

.box{ width:80%; border:2px dashed; height:180px; overflow:auto; }
.boxChild{ 
  margin:600px 0 300px; 
  width: 40px;
  height:40px;
  background:green;
}

<button>Scroll to element</button>
<div class='box'>
  <div class='boxChild'></div>
</div>

Method 2 - Using Element.scrollIntoView:

Note that browser support isn't great for this one

var targetElm = document.querySelector('.boxChild'),  // reference to scroll target
    button = document.querySelector('button');        // button that triggers the scroll
  
// bind "click" event to a button 
button.addEventListener('click', function(){
   targetElm.scrollIntoView()
})

.box {
  width: 80%;
  border: 2px dashed;
  height: 180px;
  overflow: auto;
  scroll-behavior: smooth; /* <-- for smooth scroll */
}

.boxChild {
  margin: 600px 0 300px;
  width: 40px;
  height: 40px;
  background: green;
}

<button>Scroll to element</button>
<div class='box'>
  <div class='boxChild'></div>
</div>

Method 3 - Using CSS scroll-behavior:

.box {
  width: 80%;
  border: 2px dashed;
  height: 180px;
  overflow-y: scroll;
  scroll-behavior: smooth; /* <--- */
}

#boxChild {
  margin: 600px 0 300px;
  width: 40px;
  height: 40px;
  background: green;
}

<a href='#boxChild'>Scroll to element</a>
<div class='box'>
  <div id='boxChild'></div>
</div>

Native JS, Cross Browser, Smooth Scroll (Update 2020)

Setting ScrollTop does give the desired result but the scroll is very abrupt. Using jquery to have smooth scroll was not an option. So here's a native way to get the job done that supports all major browsers. Reference - caniuse

// get the "Div" inside which you wish to scroll (i.e. the container element)
const El = document.getElementById('xyz');

// Lets say you wish to scroll by 100px, 
El.scrollTo({top: 100, behavior: 'smooth'});

// If you wish to scroll until the end of the container
El.scrollTo({top: El.scrollHeight, behavior: 'smooth'});

That's it!

---

And here's a working snippet for the doubtful -

document.getElementById('btn').addEventListener('click', e => {
  e.preventDefault();
  // smooth scroll
  document.getElementById('container').scrollTo({top: 175, behavior: 'smooth'});
});

/* just some styling for you to ignore */
.scrollContainer {
  overflow-y: auto;
  max-height: 100px;
  position: relative;
  border: 1px solid red;
  width: 120px;
}

body {
  padding: 10px;
}

.box {
  margin: 5px;
  background-color: yellow;
  height: 25px;
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
}

#goose {
  background-color: lime;
}

<!-- Dummy html to be ignored -->
<div id="container" class="scrollContainer">
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div id="goose" class="box">goose</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
</div>

<button id="btn">goose</button>

Update: As you can perceive in the comments, it seems that Element.scrollTo() is not supported in IE11. So if you don't care about IE11 (you really shouldn't), feel free to use this in all your projects. Note that support exists for Edge! So you're not really leaving your Edge/Windows users behind ;)

Reference

To scroll an element into view of a div, only if needed, you can use this scrollIfNeeded function:

function scrollIfNeeded(element, container) {
  if (element.offsetTop < container.scrollTop) {
    container.scrollTop = element.offsetTop;
  } else {
    const offsetBottom = element.offsetTop + element.offsetHeight;
    const scrollBottom = container.scrollTop + container.offsetHeight;
    if (offsetBottom > scrollBottom) {
      container.scrollTop = offsetBottom - container.offsetHeight;
    }
  }
}

document.getElementById('btn').addEventListener('click', ev => {
  ev.preventDefault();
  scrollIfNeeded(document.getElementById('goose'), document.getElementById('container'));
});

.scrollContainer {
  overflow-y: auto;
  max-height: 100px;
  position: relative;
  border: 1px solid red;
  width: 120px;
}

body {
  padding: 10px;
}

.box {
  margin: 5px;
  background-color: yellow;
  height: 25px;
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
}

#goose {
  background-color: lime;
}

<div id="container" class="scrollContainer">
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div id="goose" class="box">goose</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
  <div class="box">duck</div>
</div>

<button id="btn">scroll to goose</button>