animation-direction

Baseline Widely available

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

The animation-direction CSS property sets whether an animation should play forward, backward, or alternate back and forth between playing the sequence forward and backward.

Try it

It is often convenient to use the shorthand property animation to set all animation properties at once.

Syntax

css

/* Single animation */
animation-direction: normal;
animation-direction: reverse;
animation-direction: alternate;
animation-direction: alternate-reverse;

/* Multiple animations */
animation-direction: normal, reverse;
animation-direction: alternate, reverse, normal;

/* Global values */
animation-direction: inherit;
animation-direction: initial;
animation-direction: revert;
animation-direction: revert-layer;
animation-direction: unset;

Values

normal: The animation plays forwards each cycle. In other words, each time the animation cycles, the animation will reset to the beginning state and start over again. This is the default value.
reverse: The animation plays backwards each cycle. In other words, each time the animation cycles, the animation will reset to the end state and start over again. Animation steps are performed backwards, and easing functions are also reversed. For example, an ease-in easing function becomes ease-out.
alternate: The animation reverses direction each cycle, with the first iteration being played forwards. The count to determine if a cycle is even or odd starts at one.
alternate-reverse: The animation reverses direction each cycle, with the first iteration being played backwards. The count to determine if a cycle is even or odd starts at one.

Note: When you specify multiple comma-separated values on an animation-* property, they are applied to the animations in the order in which the animation-names appear. For situations where the number of animations and animation-* property values do not match, see Setting multiple animation property values.

Note: When creating CSS scroll-driven animations, specifying an animation-direction works as expected, for example reverse causes the animation to run in reverse over the course of the timeline's progression. A value of alternate (combined with an animation-iteration-count) causes the animation to run forwards and backwards as the timeline is progressed.

Formal definition

Initial value	`normal`
Applies to	all elements, `::before` and `::after` pseudo-elements
Inherited	no
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	Not animatable

Formal syntax

animation-direction = 
  <single-animation-direction>#  

<single-animation-direction> = 
  normal             |
  reverse            |
  alternate          |
  alternate-reverse

Examples

Reversing the animation direction

HTML

html

<div class="box"></div>

CSS

css

.box {
  background-color: rebeccapurple;
  border-radius: 10px;
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
}

.box:hover {
  animation-name: rotate;
  animation-duration: 0.7s;
  animation-direction: reverse;
}

@keyframes rotate {
  0% {
    transform: rotate(0);
  }
  100% {
    transform: rotate(360deg);
  }
}

Result

See CSS animations for examples.

Specifications

Specification
CSS Animations Level 1 # animation-direction

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser