HTMLInputElement: selectionEnd property

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 selectionEnd property of the HTMLInputElement interface is a number that represents the end index of the selected text. That is, it represents the index of the character immediately following the selection. Likewise, when there is no selection, this returns the offset of the character immediately following the current text input cursor position.

Note: According to the WHATWG forms spec selectionEnd property applies only to inputs of types text, search, URL, tel, and password. In modern browsers, throws an exception while setting selectionEnd property on the rest of input types. Additionally, this property returns null while accessing selectionEnd property on non-text input elements.

If selectionEnd is less than selectionStart, then both are treated as the value of selectionEnd.

Value

A non-negative number.

Examples

HTML

html
<!-- using selectionEnd on non text input element -->
<label for="color">selectionStart property on type=color</label>
<input id="color" type="color" />

<!-- using selectionEnd on text input element -->
<fieldset>
  <legend>selectionEnd property on type=text</legend>
  <label for="pin">Input PIN</label>
  <input type="text" id="pin" value="impossible PIN: 102-12-145" />
  <button id="pin-btn" type="button">PIN correction</button>
</fieldset>

JavaScript

js
const colorEnd = document.getElementById("color");
const text = document.querySelector("#pin");
const pinBtn = document.querySelector("#pin-btn");
const validPinChecker = /^\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{3}/g;
const selectionEnd = text.value.length;
const selectedText = text.value.substring(text.selectionStart, selectionEnd);

pinBtn.addEventListener("click", () => {
  const correctedText = selectedText.replace(validPinChecker, "");
  text.value = correctedText;
});

// open browser console to verify output
console.log(colorEnd.selectionEnd); // Output : null

Result

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# dom-textarea/input-selectionend

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
selectionEnd
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 1 (Release date: 2004-11-09)
footnote Full support
Opera – Full support
Opera 12.1 (Release date: 2012-11-20)
footnote Full support
Safari – Full support
Safari 1.3 (Release date: 2005-04-15)
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 4 (Release date: 2011-03-29)
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 1 (Release date: 2007-06-29)
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 1 (Release date: 2007-06-29)
footnote Full support

Legend

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

Full support
Full support

See also