HTMLElement.focus()

The HTMLElement.focus() method sets focus on the specified element, if it can be focused. The focused element is the element which will receive keyboard and similar events by default.

Syntax

element.focus(options); // Object parameter

Parameters

options Optional

An optional object providing options to control aspects of the focusing process. This object may contain the following property:

preventScroll Optional

A Boolean value indicating whether or not the browser should scroll the document to bring the newly-focused element into view. A value of false for preventScroll (the default) means that the browser will scroll the element into view after focusing it. If preventScroll is set to true, no scrolling will occur.

Examples

Focus on a text field

JavaScript

focusMethod = function getFocus() {          
  document.getElementById("myTextField").focus();
}

HTML

<input type="text" id="myTextField" value="Text field.">
<p></p>
<button type="button" onclick="focusMethod()">Click me to focus on the text field!</button>

Result

Focus on a button

JavaScript

focusMethod = function getFocus() {          
  document.getElementById("myButton").focus();
}

HTML

<button type="button" id="myButton">Click Me!</button>
<p></p>
<button type="button" onclick="focusMethod()">Click me to focus on the button!</button>

Result

Focus with focusOption

JavaScript

focusScrollMethod = function getFocus() {          
  document.getElementById("myButton").focus({preventScroll:false});
}
focusNoScrollMethod = function getFocusWithoutScrolling() {          
  document.getElementById("myButton").focus({preventScroll:true});
}

HTML

<button type="button" onclick="focusScrollMethod()">Click me to focus on the button!</button>
<button type="button" onclick="focusNoScrollMethod()">Click me to focus on the button without scrolling!</button>

<div id="container" style="height: 1000px; width: 1000px;"> 
<button type="button" id="myButton" style="margin-top: 500px;">Click Me!</button>
</div>

Result

Specification

Notes

• If you call HTMLElement.focus() from a mousedown event handler, you must call event.preventDefault() to keep the focus from leaving the HTMLElement

• Behaviour of the focus in relation to different HTML features like tabindex or shadow dom, which previously remained under-specified, were recently updated (as October of 2019). Checkout WHATWG blog for more info.

Browser compatibility

See also

• DOM method HTMLElement.blur() to remove the focus from an element.
• document.activeElement to know which is the currently focused element.