HTMLTextAreaElement: 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 HTMLTextAreaElement interface specifies the end position of the current text selection in a <textarea> element. It is a number representing the last index of the selected text. It can be used to both retrieve and set the index of the end of a <textarea>s selected text.

When nothing is selected, the value of both the selectionStart and selectionEnd is the position of the cursor (caret) inside the <textarea> element.

Setting selectionEnd to a value less than the current value of selectionStart updates both the selectionEnd and selectionStart properties to that value. If both value are less than 0, both properties are set to the textLength property value.

The property value can be retrieved and set without the <textarea> having focus, but the element does need to have focus for the ::selection pseudo-element to match the selected text.

Setting the selectionEnd to a new value fires the selectionchange and select events.

Value

A non-negative number.

Examples

js
const textarea = document.getElementById("text-box");
const end = textarea.selectionEnd;

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