Element: click event

An element receives a click event when a pointing device button (such as a mouse's primary mouse button) is both pressed and released while the pointer is located inside the element.

If the button is pressed on one element and the pointer is moved outside the element before the button is released, the event is fired on the most specific ancestor element that contained both elements.

click fires after both the mousedown and mouseup events have fired, in that order.

Syntax

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

addEventListener("click", (event) => {});

onclick = (event) => {};

Event type

A MouseEvent. Inherits from Event.

Event properties

This interface also inherits properties of its parents, UIEvent and Event.

MouseEvent.altKey Read only: Returns true if the alt key was down when the mouse event was fired.
MouseEvent.button Read only: The button number that was pressed (if applicable) when the mouse event was fired.
MouseEvent.buttons Read only: The buttons being pressed (if any) when the mouse event was fired.
MouseEvent.clientX Read only: The X coordinate of the mouse pointer in local (DOM content) coordinates.
MouseEvent.clientY Read only: The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer in local (DOM content) coordinates.
MouseEvent.ctrlKey Read only: Returns true if the control key was down when the mouse event was fired.
MouseEvent.layerX Non-standard Read only: Returns the horizontal coordinate of the event relative to the current layer.
MouseEvent.layerY Non-standard Read only: Returns the vertical coordinate of the event relative to the current layer.
MouseEvent.metaKey Read only: Returns true if the meta key was down when the mouse event was fired.
MouseEvent.movementX Read only: The X coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the position of the last mousemove event.
MouseEvent.movementY Read only: The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the position of the last mousemove event.
MouseEvent.offsetX Read only: The X coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the position of the padding edge of the target node.
MouseEvent.offsetY Read only: The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the position of the padding edge of the target node.
MouseEvent.pageX Read only: The X coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the whole document.
MouseEvent.pageY Read only: The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer relative to the whole document.
MouseEvent.relatedTarget Read only: The secondary target for the event, if there is one.
MouseEvent.screenX Read only: The X coordinate of the mouse pointer in global (screen) coordinates.
MouseEvent.screenY Read only: The Y coordinate of the mouse pointer in global (screen) coordinates.
MouseEvent.shiftKey Read only: Returns true if the shift key was down when the mouse event was fired.
MouseEvent.mozInputSource Non-standard Read only: The type of device that generated the event (one of the MOZ_SOURCE_* constants). This lets you, for example, determine whether a mouse event was generated by an actual mouse or by a touch event (which might affect the degree of accuracy with which you interpret the coordinates associated with the event).
MouseEvent.webkitForce Non-standard Read only: The amount of pressure applied when clicking.
MouseEvent.x Read only: Alias for MouseEvent.clientX.
MouseEvent.y Read only: Alias for MouseEvent.clientY.

Usage notes

The MouseEvent object passed into the event handler for click has its detail property set to the number of times the target was clicked. In other words, detail will be 2 for a double-click, 3 for triple-click, and so forth. This counter resets after a short interval without any clicks occurring; the specifics of how long that interval is may vary from browser to browser and across platforms. The interval is also likely to be affected by user preferences; for example, accessibility options may extend this interval to make it easier to perform multiple clicks with adaptive interfaces.

Examples

This example displays the number of consecutive clicks on a <button>.

HTML

html

<button>Click</button>

JavaScript

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

button.addEventListener("click", (event) => {
  button.textContent = `Click count: ${event.detail}`;
});

Result

Try making rapid, repeated clicks on the button to increase the click count. If you take a break between clicks, the count will reset.

Specifications

Specification
UI Events # event-type-click
HTML Standard # handler-onclick

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser