user-select

Limited availability

This feature is not Baseline because it does not work in some of the most widely-used browsers.

The user-select CSS property controls whether the user can select text. This doesn't have any effect on content loaded as part of a browser's user interface (its chrome), except in textboxes.

Try it

Syntax

css
/* Keyword values */
user-select: none;
user-select: auto;
user-select: text;
user-select: all;

/* Global values */
user-select: inherit;
user-select: initial;
user-select: revert;
user-select: revert-layer;
user-select: unset;

Note: user-select is not an inherited property, though the initial auto value makes it behave like it is inherited most of the time. WebKit/Chromium-based browsers do implement the property as inherited, which violates the behavior described in the spec, and this will bring some issues. Until now, Chromium has chosen to fix the issues to make the final behavior meet the specifications.

Values

none

The text of the element and its sub-elements is not selectable. Note that the Selection object can contain these elements.

auto

The used value of auto is determined as follows:

  • On the ::before and ::after pseudo elements, the used value is none
  • If the used value of user-select on the parent of this element is none, the used value is none
  • Otherwise, if the used value of user-select on the parent of this element is all, the used value is all
  • Otherwise, the used value is text
text

The text can be selected by the user.

all

The content of the element shall be selected atomically: If a selection would contain part of the element, then the selection must contain the entire element including all its descendants. If a double-click or context-click occurred in sub-elements, the highest ancestor with this value will be selected.

Note: The CSS basic user interface module defines a contain value for the user-select property to enable selection to start within the element to be contained by the bounds of that element, however, this is not supported in any browsers.

Formal definition

Initial valueauto
Applies toall elements
Inheritedno
Computed valueas specified
Animation typediscrete

Formal syntax

user-select = 
  auto     |
  text     |
  none     |
  contain  |
  all

Examples

HTML

html
<p>You should be able to select this text.</p>
<p class="unselectable">Hey, you can't select this text!</p>
<p class="all">Clicking once will select all of this text.</p>

CSS

css
.unselectable {
  -webkit-user-select: none; /* Safari */
  user-select: none;
}

.all {
  -webkit-user-select: all;
  user-select: all;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Basic User Interface Module Level 4
# content-selection

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also