Patterns to avoid: Infinite scroll

Infinite scroll is a front-end interaction pattern in which new content loads automatically as users reach the bottom of the page, eliminating the need to click through numbered pages.

We don’t recommend using infinite scroll because it has many significant accessibility issues:

  • You can’t go back to your previous place using browser “back” button.
  • You can’t easily get to the footer or the last items in the infinite scroll.
  • There is a large memory footprint if loading big images.
  • Unless a fallback mode is provided, it doesn’t work without JavaScript.
  • There is no standard model for interacting with infinite scroll, so every implementation requires a difficult phase of discovery for users of assistive technology.
  • There is no URL to a specific place on the page.
  • And the list goes on…

There is a great summary of the disadvantages in the WordPress trac ticket Reconsider the usage of infinite scrolling across the admin.

Recommendations

Pagination with page numbers removes all the issues mentioned above.

Pagination with page numbers from 1 to 9

If the number of items to load is not too high, “Load more items” buttons could work as well. However, that option is limited to sequential usage and doesn’t provide any methods to access previously loaded items or the very last items to load.

Note: The ARIA role “feed” is intended to solve screen reader feedback and keyboard navigation issues, but it is not yet reliable enough for use, and it doesn’t solve all the (usability) issues mentioned above.

Infinite scroll the WordPress Media Library grid view

In WordPress 7.1, infinite scroll is added by default for the Media Library grid view. There are 2 ways to disable this:

In your user profile (Users > Profile > Your name), check the option “Disable infinite scrolling in the Media Library grid view”. Then, a message “Load more” appears in the Medial Library grid view to manually load more images.

Load more button, with above the button the text Showing 80 of 2987 media items.

Or view the images in the Media screen in “list view” instead of “grid view”. The list view option has standard WordPress Admin pagination.

Note: The “list view” solution only works for the Media screens; changing your user setting will also impact the Media modal for adding items to posts and pages.

Icons to select list or grid view, with the list view focussed.
"List view" is the first icon in the options to change view.

We are working on a more intuitive way to disable infinite scroll, read the trac ticket: Add option to toggle infinite scroll in the media modal for the discussion.

Resources

Resources mostly focused on accessibility

Resources mostly focused on usability

  • First published: October 10, 2025
  • Last updated: September 30, 2026
  • Edit article: Improve it on GitHub
  • Contributors: Joe Dolson, Rian Rietveld.