Make Container Shrink to Fit Child Elements

You can use CSS Flexbox to make the flex container fit around the child elements. This makes the layout closely packed and prevents the container from stretching. In this blog, we will discuss flex-wrap, display, and width to make the container shrink to fit child elements. 

Table of Contents: 

• Understanding the Problem
• Methods to Fix the Issue
  • Method 1: Use display: inline-flex
  • Method 2: Remove width: 100% from the Container
  • Method 3: Preventing Stretching with align-items: flex-start
  • Method 4: Restricting Child Growth with flex: 0 1 auto
  • Method 5: Using min-content or max-content for Container Width
  • Method 6: Using inline-block Instead of Flexbox
• Conclusion

Understanding the Problem

By default, the flex container gets expanded to fill the available space, but it fails to shrink. Example: width: 100% or flex: 1 makes the element get stretched instead of fitting around the container. If the flex items don’t wrap, the container gets expanded to fit them all in one line. Added to this, display: flex makes the container stretch and get larger as per the need. Because of these settings, the container height shrinks depending on the container. 

Example:

Output: 

Issue: The issue here is that the .container is getting stretched out to fill the full width because it is set to width: 100%. You can see the items are wrapped, but the container is not shrinking to fit the content. You can fix this by adjusting the width or other properties.

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Methods to Fix the Issue

You can use display: inline-flex, width: max-content, align-items: flex-start, or flex: 0 1 auto for this purpose. Let us discuss them below. 

Method 1: Use display: inline-flex

You can use inline-flex instead of flex to fix this issue. You can see the container will act like an inline element by keeping the flexbox feature alive. 

Example:

Output:

Explanation: You can use this code to create three items with inline-flex so that the items get aligned in a row or get wrapped on the small screen. You can see each item is styled with padding and has equal space between them. 

Method 2: Remove width: 100% from the Container

You can use width: max-content to make the container take only as much width as it requires. This can make sure the width fits around the container without extra space. 

Example:

Output: 

Explanation: You can use max-content to create a flexible container that gets the items fixed inside the container without extra spaces. You can see the items are styled using padding, background color, and border. 

Method 3: Preventing Stretching with align-items: flex-start

You can use align-items: flex-start for the container, which is stretching vertically, which can make sure the items stay at the normal height and are aligned to the top of the container. 

Example:

Output:

Explanation: You can prevent some unwanted stretching and get them aligned to the top by setting the container to align-items: flex-start. 

Method 4: Restricting Child Growth with flex: 0 1 auto

You can use flex: 0 1 auto to make sure the items remain in their normal size and do not grow further. Therefore, you can get a balanced layout. 

Example:

Output:

Explanation: You can use the flex-wrap to arrange items in a row and get them wrapped if needed. And use flex: 0 1 auto for restricting the size of the items. So that you can grow unnecessarily. 

Method 5: Using min-content or max-content for Container Width

You can use max-content or min-content instead of using inline-flex. This makes the container width get adjusted depending on the size. 

Example:

Output:

Explanation: You can use this code to create a flexible container that is styled with width: max-content to make the items fit inside it without extra space. 

Method 6: Using inline-block Instead of Flexbox

You can also use inline-block instead of Flexbox for creating a container with items that is aligned with a flexible layout. 

Example:

Output:

Explanation: You can use inline-block in the code for creating a container, and items behave like an inline element with styles.

Conclusion 

You can use methods like display: inline-flex for removing the width: 100% and use max-content, set align-items: flex-start for preventing stretching, and apply the flex: 0 1 auto to restrict the growth so that you can achieve a flex container that gets shrunk to fit the content. 

Make Container Shrink-to-Fit Child Elements as They Wrap in HTML – FAQs