Problem

• When I go to the new page, the scroll position should be on the top
• When users visit page A, scroll down, and click a link that takes them to page B. If they navigate back to page A using the browser's back button, the scroll position should be restored. If they navigate back to A using a link to A on page B, the scroll position should be at the top of the page.

Solution

• When users click a link or we call navigate function, the key changes
• When users click a browser back button, the key does not change

Custom ScrollRestoration

// language: javascript
import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react'
import { useBlocker, useLocation } from 'react-router-dom'

type ScrollStates = {
  [key: string]: number
}
type PageKeys = {
  [key: string]: string
}

const ScrollRestoration = () => {
  const location = useLocation()
  const scrollableParent = document.querySelector('main')
  
  const [pageKeys, setPageKeys] = useState<PageKeys>({})
  const [scrollStates, setScrollStates] = useState<ScrollStates>({})
  
  useEffect(() => {
    if (!scrollableParent) return
    const pathName = location.pathname
    const clickedBackButton = pageKeys[pathName] === location.key

    if (clickedBackButton) {
      scrollableParent.scrollTo(0, scrollStates[pathName] || 0)
    } else {
      scrollableParent.scrollTo(0, 0)
    }
  
    const newPageKeys = { ...pageKeys, [pathName]: location.key }
    setPageKeys(newPageKeys)  
  }, [location])
  
  useBlocker(() => {
    if (scrollableParent) {
      const newScrollState = {
        ...scrollStates,
        [location.pathname]: scrollableParent.scrollTop
      }
      setScrollStates(newScrollState)
    }
    return false
  })
  
  return <></>
}

export default ScrollRestoration

• In most cases, scrollableParent will be the window object. However, in my project, I specifically target the <main> tag for scrolling purposes.
• pageKeys is used to store the key associated with each pathname, while scrollStates tracks the scroll position for each pathname. Because I add the ScrollRestoration component in the React Router layout, it doesn't remount during navigation. If you place elsewhere, where pageKeys and scrollStates might be lost during navigation, consider using global state or sessionStorage instead of React state.
• clickedBackButton = pageKeys[pathName] === location.key determines whether the back button was clicked by comparing the current pathname's key with the location key (explained above)
• useBlocker is used to store the scroll position of the page before navigation (more details). It always returns false so as not to block navigation.