HTMLInputElement: select() method

The HTMLInputElement.select() method selects all the text in a <textarea> element or in an <input> element that includes a text field.

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

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also