The HTMLInputElement.select() method selects all the text in a <textarea> element or in an <input> element that includes a text field.
HTMLInputElement: select() method
Syntax
js
select()
Parameters
None.
Return value
None (undefined).
Examples
Click the button in this example to select all the text in the <input> element.
HTML
html
<input type="text" id="text-box" size="20" value="Hello world!" />
<button onclick="selectText()">Select text</button>
JavaScript
js
function selectText() {
const input = document.getElementById("text-box");
input.focus();
input.select();
}
Result
Notes
Calling element.select() will not necessarily focus the input, so it is often used with HTMLElement.focus.
In browsers where it is not supported, it is possible to replace it with a call to HTMLInputElement.setSelectionRange() with parameters 0 and the input's value length:
html
<input onClick="this.select();" value="Sample Text" />
<!-- equivalent to -->
<input
onClick="this.setSelectionRange(0, this.value.length);"
value="Sample Text" />
Specifications
| Specification |
|---|
| HTML Standard # dom-textarea/input-select |
Browser compatibility
| Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome | Edge | Firefox | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari | WebView Android | Chrome Android | Firefox for Android | Opera Android | Safari on IOS | Samsung Internet | |
select |
1 | 12 | 1 | 5.5 | ≤12.1 | 1 | 4.4 | 18 | 4 | ≤12.1 | 1 | 1.0 |
See also
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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLInputElement/select