HTMLTextAreaElement: setSelectionRange() method

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 setSelectionRange() method of the HTMLTextAreaElement interface sets the start and end positions of the current text selection, and optionally the direction, in an <textarea> element. The direction indicates the in which selection should be considered to have occurred; for example, that the selection was set by the user clicking and dragging from the end of the selected text toward the beginning. In addition, the select and selectchange events are fired.

This method also updates the HTMLTextAreaElement.selectionStart, HTMLTextAreaElement.selectionEnd, and HTMLTextAreaElement.selectionDirection properties.

Note: The <textarea> must be focused to enable selecting a subsection of the text to be selected using the setSelectionRange() method. Setting focus also fires a selectchange event.

To select all of the text of an <textarea> element, use the HTMLTextAreaElement.select() method.

Syntax

js
setSelectionRange(selectionStart, selectionEnd)
setSelectionRange(selectionStart, selectionEnd, selectionDirection)

Parameters

selectionStart

The index of the first selected character. An index greater than the length of the element's value is treated as pointing to the end of the value. See the selectionStart property for more information.

selectionEnd

The index of the character after the last selected character. An index greater than the length of the element's value is treated as pointing to the end of the value. If selectionEnd is less than selectionStart, then both are treated as the value of selectionEnd. See the selectionEnd property for more information.

selectionDirection Optional

The keyword "forward", "backward", or the default "none" — indicating the direction in which the selection is considered to have been performed. See the selectionDirection property for more information.

Return value

None (undefined).

Examples

js
const textarea = document.getElementById("text-box");
const chars = textarea.textLength;
// if the value is more than 10 characters long
if (chars > 10) {
  // Element must be focused to select a range of text within it
  textarea.focus();
  // select the text between the fifth character from the start and
  // the fifth character from the end
  textarea.setSelectionRange(5, chars - 5);
} else {
  // otherwise select all the text
  textarea.select();
}

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# dom-textarea/input-setselectionrange-dev

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also