no backwards-compatible way to make `AlertDialog` scrollable by default. Instead, the parameter will remain and you can set `scrollable` to true if you want a scrollable `AlertDialog`.
Original behavior
Before this change, when an `AlertDialog` widget's contents were too tall, the display overflowed, causing the contents to be clipped. This resulted in the following issues:
New behavior
The previous approach listed the title and content widgets consecutively in a `Column` widget.
- Who is affected
- Applications and packages relying on the previous behaviour or signature. Code that uses AlertDialog, Column, SingleChildScrollView and related APIs.
- Practical impact
- Behaviour or API differences that can break builds or change runtime behaviour.
- What action should I take?
- Follow the official migration guide below, update affected call sites, run `dart fix --apply` where a fix is available, then run your tests.
Before and after (from the official guide)
| 1 | AlertDialog( | |
| 2 | − | title: Text( |
| 3 | − | 'Very, very large title that is also scrollable', |
| 4 | − | textScaleFactor: 5, |
| 5 | − | ), |
| 6 | − | content: SingleChildScrollView( // won't be scrollable |
| 7 | − | child: Text('Scrollable content', textScaleFactor: 5), |
| 8 | − | ), |
| 9 | actions: <Widget>[ | |
| 10 | TextButton(child: Text('Button 1'), onPressed: () {}), | |
| 11 | TextButton(child: Text('Button 2'), onPressed: () {}), | |
| 12 | ], | |
| 13 | ) |
| 1 | AlertDialog( | |
| 2 | + | title: Text('Very, very large title', textScaleFactor: 5), |
| 3 | + | content: Text('Very, very large content', textScaleFactor: 5), |
| 4 | actions: <Widget>[ | |
| 5 | TextButton(child: Text('Button 1'), onPressed: () {}), | |
| 6 | TextButton(child: Text('Button 2'), onPressed: () {}), | |
| 7 | ], | |
| 8 | ) |
Raw before / after
AlertDialog(
title: Text(
'Very, very large title that is also scrollable',
textScaleFactor: 5,
),
content: SingleChildScrollView( // won't be scrollable
child: Text('Scrollable content', textScaleFactor: 5),
),
actions: <Widget>[
TextButton(child: Text('Button 1'), onPressed: () {}),
TextButton(child: Text('Button 2'), onPressed: () {}),
],
)AlertDialog(
title: Text('Very, very large title', textScaleFactor: 5),
content: Text('Very, very large content', textScaleFactor: 5),
actions: <Widget>[
TextButton(child: Text('Button 1'), onPressed: () {}),
TextButton(child: Text('Button 2'), onPressed: () {}),
],
)Official migration guide (excerpt, © The Flutter Authors, CC BY 3.0)
You might see the following issues as a result of this change:
Semantics tests might fail because of the addition of a SingleChildScrollView.
: Manual testing of the Talkback and VoiceOver features
show that they still exhibit the same (correct)
behavior as before.
Golden tests might fail.
: This change might have caused diffs in (previously passing)
golden tests since the SingleChildScrollView now nests both the
title and content widgets.
Some Flutter projects have taken to creating semantics tests
by taking goldens of semantics nodes used in Flutter's debug build.
Any semantics golden updates that reflect the scrolling container addition are expected and these diffs should be safe to accept.
Sample resulting Semantics tree:
flutter: ├─SemanticsNode#30 <-- SingleChildScrollView
flutter: │ flags: hasImplicitScrolling
flutter: │ scrollExtentMin: 0.0
flutter: │ scrollPosition: 0.0
flutter: │ scrollExtentMax: 0.0
flutter: │
flutter: ├─SemanticsNode#31 <-- title
flutter: │ flags: namesRoute
flutter: │ label: "Hello"
flutter: │
flutter: └─SemanticsNode#32 <-- contents
flutter: label: "Huge content"Layout changes might result because of the scroll view. : If the dialog was already overflowing, this change corrects the problem. This layout change is expected.
A nested SingleChildScrollView in AlertDialog.content
should work properly if left in the code,
but should be removed if unintended, since
it might cause confusion.
Code before migration:
AlertDialog(
title: Text(
'Very, very large title that is also scrollable',
textScaleFactor: 5,
),
content: SingleChildScrollView( // won't be scrollable
child: Text('Scrollable content', textScaleFactor: 5),
),
actions: <Widget>[
TextButton(child: Text('Button 1'), onPressed: () {}),
TextButton(child: Text('Button 2'), onPressed: () {}),
],
)Code after migration:
AlertDialog(
title: Text('Very, very large title', textScaleFactor: 5),
content: Text('Very, very large content', textScaleFactor: 5),
actions: <Widget>[
TextButton(child: Text('Button 1'), onPressed: () {}),
TextButton(child: Text('Button 2'), onPressed: () {}),
],
)AI_PROVIDER (for example to openai-compatible with a local Ollama or LM Studio endpoint) to enable grounded explanations. Everything else on this page works without an AI provider.Listed in the official breaking-changes index (docs.flutter.dev/release/breaking-changes).
An official announcement or migration guide documents an intended behaviour or API change. A verified source change (git diff) shows code changed but does not by itself prove a public API is breaking. AI interpretations are labelled and never used to classify a change.
- Official migration guide
- Overflow exceptions with maximum accessibility font size
- Update to AlertDialog.scrollable
- Original attempt to implement scrollable AlertDialog
- Revert of original attempt to implement scrollable AlertDialog
- Source commit
- b3045439b7c0
- Source last updated
- Oct 21, 2026
- Last synchronized
- Oct 21, 2026
- Publication status
- published
Publication history
- Oct 21, 2026, 8:31 PM: new → published (ingestion) — Backed by an official breaking-change/migration guide.
AI_PROVIDER (for example to openai-compatible with a local Ollama or LM Studio endpoint) to enable grounded explanations. Everything else on this page works without an AI provider.