When flexbox items wrap in column mode, container does not grow its width

Question

The Problem

This looks like a fundamental deficiency in flex layout.

A flex container in column-direction will not expand to accommodate additional columns. (This is not a problem in flex-direction: row.)

This question has been asked many times (see list below), with no clean answers in CSS.

It's hard to pin this as a bug because the problem occurs across all major browsers. But it does raise the question:

How is it possible that all major browsers got the flex container to expand on wrap in row-direction but not in column-direction?

You would think at least one of them would get it right. I can only speculate on the reason. Maybe it was a technically difficult implementation and was shelved for this iteration.

UPDATE: The issue appears to be resolved in Edge v16.

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Illustration of the Problem

The OP created a useful demo illustrating the problem. I'm copying it here: http://jsfiddle.net/nwccdwLw/1/

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Workaround Options

Hacky solutions from the Stack Overflow community:

• "It seems this issue cannot be solved only with CSS, so I propose you a JQuery solution."

• "It's curious that most browsers haven't implemented column flex containers correctly, but the support for writing modes is reasonably good. Therefore, you can use a row flex container with a vertical writing mode."

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More Analysis

• Chromium Bug Report

• Mark Amery's answer

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Other Posts Describing the Same Problem

• Flex box container width doesn't grow
• How can I make a display:flex container expand horizontally with its wrapped contents?
• Flex-flow: column wrap. How to set container's width equal to content?
• Flexbox flex-flow column wrap bugs in chrome?
• How do I use "flex-flow: column wrap"?
• Flex container doesn't expand when contents wrap in a column
• flex-flow: column wrap, in a flex box causing overflow of parent container
• Html flexbox container does not expand over wrapped children
• Flexbox container and overflowing flex children?
• How can I make a flexbox container that stretches to fit wrapped items?
• Flex container calculating one column, when there are multiple columns
• Make container full width with flex
• Flexbox container resize possible?
• Flex-Wrap Inside Flex-Grow
• Flexbox grow to contain
• Expand flexbox element to its contents?
• flexbox column stretch to fit content
• https://stackoverflow.com/q/48406237/3597276
• flex-flow: column wrap doesn't stretch the parent element's width
• Why doesn't my <ul> expand width to cover all the <li>?
• https://stackoverflow.com/q/55709208/3597276
• Flexbox wrap not increasing the width of parent?
• Absolute Flex container not changing to the correct width with defined max-height

Late to the party, but was still running into this issue YEARS later. Ended up finding a solution using grid. On the container you can use

display: grid;
grid-auto-flow: column;
grid-template-rows: repeat(6, auto);

I have an example on CodePen that toggles between the flexbox issue and the grid fix: https://codepen.io/MandeeD/pen/JVLdLd

I just found a really awesome PURE CSS workaround here.

https://jsfiddle.net/gcob492x/3/

The tricky: set writing-mode: vertical-lr in the list div then writing-mode: horizontal-tb in the list item. I had to tweak the styles in the JSFiddle (remove a lot of the alignment styles, which aren't necessary for the solution).

Note: the comment says it only works in Chromium-based browsers, and not Firefox. I've only personally tested in Chrome. It's possible either there's a way to modify this to make it work in other browsers or there have been updates to said browsers that make this work.

Big shoutout to this comment: When flexbox items wrap in column mode, container does not grow its width. Digging through that issue thread led me to https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=507397#c39 which led me to this JSFiddle.

CSS-only workaround

Nearly 6 years after this question was asked, this flexbox bug still exists, so here's a CSS-only flex-direction: column workaround for anyone else that ends up here:

body {
  background-color: grey;
}

button {
  background-color: white;
  border: none;
  border-radius: 4px;
  width: 80px;
  height: 40px;
  margin: 4px;
}

/* WORKAROUND FOR flex-direction: column WITH WRAP IS BELOW */
.wrapped-columns {
  flex-direction: row;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  writing-mode: vertical-lr;
  text-orientation: upright;
}

/* Ensures content is rendered correctly in Firefox */
.wrapped-columns * {
    writing-mode: horizontal-tb;
}

<div class="wrapped-columns">
  <button>Button 1</button>
  <button>Button 2</button>
  <button>Button 3</button>
  <button>Button 4</button>
  <button>Button 5</button>
  <button>Button 6</button>
  <button>Button 7</button>
  <button>Button 8</button>
  <button>Button 9</button>
  <button>Button 10</button>
  <button>Button 11</button>
  <button>Button 12</button>
  <button>Button 13</button>
  <button>Button 14</button>
</div>

This workaround gives the same outcome as flex-direction: column and works with both flex-wrap: wrap and wrap-reverse.

It is unfortunate that so many major browsers suffer from this bug after many years. Consider a Javascript workaround. Whenever the browser window resizes, or content is added to the element, execute this code to get it to resize to the proper width. You can define a directive in your framework to do it for you.

    element.style.flexBasis = "auto";
    element.style.flexBasis = `${element.scrollWidth}px`;