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Viewport settings restrict zoom

In the reportPages disable pinch-zoom in their viewport meta tag

viewport_zoom_disabled · Issue

Short answer

This appears when a page's viewport tag asks browsers to restrict zooming, with user-scalable=no or a maximum-scale below 5. This can make it harder for people with low vision to enlarge the page. Remove both settings from the tag.

Severity: Notice. It is an accessibility setting, easy to fix in the template.

Why it matters

Deque's rule for the viewport tag, which Lighthouse's accessibility audit links to, says zooming and scaling must not be disabled, because that is a problem for people with low vision who rely on screen magnifiers, and ties it to the WCAG success criterion on resizing text. Lighthouse counts the check in its accessibility score.

What to do

  1. Look at the finding: it shows the viewport tag and the setting that restricts zoom.
  2. Remove user-scalable=no and maximum-scale, and keep width=device-width, initial-scale=1.
  3. If one part of the page must not zoom, such as a map, handle that in that element, not for the whole page.

What we read

We read <meta name="viewport"> declarations in the completely captured <head> of each crawled 200 text/html page, as served. A page is reported when its one viewport tag has user-scalable=no or user-scalable=0, or a maximum-scale below 5, such as 1 or 4.9. The limit of 5 is fixed, and noindex pages are checked too.

A page without a viewport tag is left to another check. A page is marked as not checked when its head contains <noscript> or an element that belongs in the body, it has more than one viewport tag, or a value is unclear, such as maximum-scale=large or user-scalable or maximum-scale written twice.

Example & evidence

Illustrative example — one viewport tag, not a live audit.

https://bakery.example/ has:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1, user-scalable=no">

The tag declares a zoom restriction and caps its requested scale at 1, so the page is reported with both settings.

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

A possible correction: the same tag without the two settings.

Confirm & check again

Check for yourself: open the page on a phone and try to zoom in with two fingers, or view the source and read the viewport tag.

Check again: Full audit — Run a new site audit. The finding closes when a sufficient check of the same page finds one unambiguous viewport tag without a zoom restriction. Removing the viewport tag makes this check not applicable and may trigger the missing-viewport check; it does not by itself confirm a fix. A redirect, a non-HTML response, a direct 404 or 410, an incomplete head or several viewport tags also does not by itself confirm a fix.

Limits & sources

The check reads the setting, not how browsers behave, and some let visitors zoom anyway. The limit of 5 follows the wording of Lighthouse's audit, while the axe rule Lighthouse runs fails only values below 2, so a value from 2 to under 5 is reported here and may pass Lighthouse.

Confidence: High because the setting is read directly from the tag.

Sources

  • Deque University, Zooming and scaling must not be disabled — says disabling zoom, or limiting it with maximum-scale, is a problem for people with low vision who rely on screen magnifiers, and asks for a maximum-scale not less than 2. Checked 29 September 2026.
  • Chrome for Developers, Lighthouse accessibility score — lists the audit that user-scalable="no" is not used and maximum-scale is not less than 5 among Lighthouse's accessibility audits. Checked 29 September 2026.

Editorial review: 1 November 2026