HTMLMediaElement: canplay 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.

See full compatibility

The canplay event is fired when the user agent can play the media, but estimates that not enough data has been loaded to play the media up to its end without having to stop for further buffering of content.

This event is not cancelable and does not bubble.

Syntax

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

addEventListener("canplay", (event) => { })

oncanplay = (event) => { }

Event type

A generic Event.

Examples

These examples add an event listener for the HTMLMediaElement's canplay event, then post a message when that event handler has reacted to the event firing.

Using addEventListener():

const video = document.querySelector("video");

video.addEventListener("canplay", (event) => {
  console.log("Video can start, but not sure it will play through.");
});

Using the oncanplay event handler property:

const video = document.querySelector("video");

video.oncanplay = (event) => {
  console.log("Video can start, but not sure it will play through.");
};

Specifications

Specification
HTML # event-media-canplay
HTML # handler-oncanplay

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
`canplay` event	Chrome – Full support Chrome 3 (Release date: 2009-09-15) footnote Full support	Edge – Full support Edge 12 (Release date: 2015-07-29) footnote Full support	Firefox – Full support Firefox 3.5 (Release date: 2009-06-30) footnote Full support	Opera – Full support Opera 10.5 (Release date: 2010-03-02) footnote Full support	Safari – Full support Safari 3.1 (Release date: 2008-03-18) 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 11 (Release date: 2011-03-22) 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

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Full support: Full support

Related Events

The HTMLMediaElement playing event
The HTMLMediaElement waiting event
The HTMLMediaElement seeking event
The HTMLMediaElement seeked event
The HTMLMediaElement ended event
The HTMLMediaElement loadedmetadata event
The HTMLMediaElement loadeddata event
The HTMLMediaElement canplaythrough event
The HTMLMediaElement durationchange event
The HTMLMediaElement timeupdate event
The HTMLMediaElement play event
The HTMLMediaElement pause event
The HTMLMediaElement ratechange event
The HTMLMediaElement volumechange event
The HTMLMediaElement suspend event
The HTMLMediaElement emptied event
The HTMLMediaElement stalled event