Element: cut event

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The cut event of the Clipboard API is fired when the user has initiated a "cut" action through the browser's user interface.

If the user attempts a cut action on uneditable content, the cut event still fires but the event object contains no data.

The event's default action is to copy the current selection (if any) to the system clipboard and remove it from the document.

A handler for this event can modify the clipboard contents by calling setData(format, data) on the event's ClipboardEvent.clipboardData property, and cancelling the default action using event.preventDefault().

Note though that cancelling the default action will also prevent the document from being updated. So an event handler which wants to emulate the default action for "cut" while modifying the clipboard must also manually remove the selection from the document.

The handler cannot read the clipboard data.

It's possible to construct and dispatch a synthetic cut event, but this will not affect the system clipboard or the document's contents.

This event bubbles up the DOM tree, eventually to Document and Window, is cancelable and is composed.

Syntax

Use the event name in methods like addEventListener(), or set an event handler property.

js
addEventListener("cut", (event) => { })

oncut = (event) => { }

Event type

A ClipboardEvent. Inherits from Event.

Event ClipboardEvent

Examples

Live example

HTML

html
<div class="source" contenteditable="true">Cut text from this box.</div>
<div class="target" contenteditable="true">And paste it into this one.</div>

JavaScript

js
const source = document.querySelector("div.source");

source.addEventListener("cut", (event) => {
  const selection = document.getSelection();
  event.clipboardData.setData("text/plain", selection.toString().toUpperCase());
  selection.deleteFromDocument();
  event.preventDefault();
});

Result

Specifications

Specification
Clipboard API and events
# clipboard-event-cut
HTML
# handler-oncut

Browser compatibility

desktop mobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
cut event
Chrome – Full support
Chrome 1 (Release date: 2008-12-11)
footnote Full support
Edge – Full support
Edge 12 (Release date: 2015-07-29)
footnote Full support
Firefox – Full support
Firefox 22 (Release date: 2013-06-25)
footnote Full support
Opera – Full support
Opera 12.1 (Release date: 2012-11-20)
footnote Full support
Safari – Full support
Safari 3 (Release date: 2007-10-26)
footnote Full support
Chrome Android – Full support
Chrome Android 18 (Release date: 2012-06-27)
footnote Full support
Firefox for Android – Full support
Firefox for Android 22 (Release date: 2013-06-25)
footnote Full support
Opera Android – Full support
Opera Android 12.1 (Release date: 2012-10-09)
footnote Full support
Safari on iOS – Full support
Safari on iOS 3 (Release date: 2009-06-17)
footnote Full support
Samsung Internet – Full support
Samsung Internet 1 (Release date: 2013-04-27)
footnote Full support
WebView Android – Full support
WebView Android 4.4 (Release date: 2013-12-09)
footnote Full support
WebView on iOS – Full support
WebView on iOS 3 (Release date: 2009-06-17)
footnote Full support

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support

See also