<input type="checkbox">

<input> elements of type checkbox are rendered by default as boxes that are checked (ticked) when activated, like you might see in an official government paper form. The exact appearance depends upon the operating system configuration under which the browser is running. Generally this is a square but it may have rounded corners. A checkbox allows you to select single values for submission in a form (or not).

Value

A DOMString representing the value of the checkbox. This is never seen on the client-side, but on the server this is the value given to the data submitted with the checkbox's name. Take the following example:

<form>
  <div>
    <input type="checkbox" id="subscribeNews" name="subscribe" value="newsletter">
    <label for="subscribeNews">Subscribe to newsletter?</label>
  </div>
  <div>
    <button type="submit">Subscribe</button>
  </div>
</form>

In this example, we've got a name of subscribe, and a value of newsletter. When the form is submitted, the data name/value pair will be subscribe=newsletter.

If the value attribute was omitted, the default value for the checkbox is on, so the submitted data in that case would be subscribe=on.

Additional attributes

In addition to the common attributes shared by all <input> elements, "checkbox" inputs support the following attributes:

checked

A Boolean attribute indicating whether or not this checkbox is checked by default (when the page loads). It does not indicate whether this checkbox is currently checked: if the checkbox’s state is changed, this content attribute does not reflect the change. (Only the HTMLInputElement’s checked IDL attribute is updated.)

Unlike other browsers, Firefox by default persists the dynamic checked state of an <input> across page loads. Use the autocomplete attribute to control this feature.

indeterminate

If the indeterminate attribute is present on the <input> element defining a checkbox, the checkbox's value is neither true nor false, but is instead indeterminate, meaning that it's state cannot be determined or stated in pure binary terms. This may happen, for instance, if the state of the checkbox depends on multiple other checkboxes, and those checkboxes have different values.

Essentially, then, the indeterminate attribute adds a third possible state to the checkbox: "I don't know." In this state, the browser may draw the checkbox in grey or with a different mark inside the checkbox. For instance, browsers on macOS may draw the checkbox with a hyphen "-" inside to indicate an unexpected state.

value

The value attribute is one which all <input>s share; however, it serves a special purpose for inputs of type checkbox: when a form is submitted, only checkboxes which are currently checked are submitted to the server, and the reported value is the value of the value attribute. If the value is not otherwise specified, it is the string on by default. This is demonstrated in the section Value above.

Using checkbox inputs

We already covered the most basic use of checkboxes above. Let's now look at the other common checkbox-related features and techniques you'll need.

Handling multiple checkboxes

The example we saw above only contained one checkbox; in real-world situations you'll be likely to encounter multiple checkboxes. If they are completely unrelated, then you can just deal with them all separately, as shown above. However, if they're all related, things are not quite so simple.

For example, in the following demo we include multiple checkboxes to allow the user to select their interests (see the full version in the Examples section).

<fieldset>
  <legend>Choose your interests</legend>
  <div>
    <input type="checkbox" id="coding" name="interest" value="coding">
    <label for="coding">Coding</label>
  </div>
  <div>
    <input type="checkbox" id="music" name="interest" value="music">
    <label for="music">Music</label>
  </div>
</fieldset>

In this example you will see that we've given each checkbox the same name. If both checkboxes are checked and then the form is submitted, you'll get a string of name/value pairs submitted like this: interest=coding&interest=music. When this string reaches the server, you need to parse it other than as an associative array, so all values, not only the last value, of interest are captured. For one technique used with PHP, see Handle Multiple Checkboxes with a Single Serverside Variable, for example.

Checking boxes by default

To make a checkbox checked by default, you simply give it the checked attribute. See the below example:

<fieldset>
  <legend>Choose your interests</legend>
  <div>
    <input type="checkbox" id="coding" name="interest" value="coding" checked>
    <label for="coding">Coding</label>
  </div>
  <div>
    <input type="checkbox" id="music" name="interest" value="music">
    <label for="music">Music</label>
  </div>
</fieldset>

Providing a bigger hit area for your checkboxes

In the above examples, you may have noticed that you can toggle a checkbox by clicking on its associated <label> element as well as on the checkbox itself. This is a really useful feature of HTML form labels that makes it easier to click the option you want, especially on small-screen devices like smartphones.

Beyond accessibility, this is another good reason to properly set up <label> elements on your forms.

Indeterminate state checkboxes

In addition to the checked and unchecked states, there is a third state a checkbox can be in: indeterminate. This is a state in which it's impossible to say whether the item is toggled on or off. This is set using the HTMLInputElement object's indeterminate property via JavaScript (it cannot be set using an HTML attribute):

inputInstance.indeterminate = true;

A checkbox in the indeterminate state has a horizontal line in the box (it looks somewhat like a hyphen or minus sign) instead of a check/tick in most browsers.

There are not many use cases for this property. The most common is when a checkbox is available that "owns" a number of sub-options (which are also checkboxes). If all of the sub-options are checked, the owning checkbox is also checked, and if they're all unchecked, the owning checkbox is unchecked. If any one or more of the sub-options have a different state than the others, the owning checkbox is in the indeterminate state.

This can be seen in the below example (thanks to CSS Tricks for the inspiration). In this example we keep track of the ingredients we are collecting for a recipe. When you check or uncheck an ingredient's checkbox, a JavaScript function checks the total number of checked ingredients:

• If none are checked, the recipe name's checkbox is set to unchecked.
• If one or two are checked, the recipe name's checkbox is set to indeterminate.
• If all three are checked, the recipe name's checkbox is set to checked.

So in this case the indeterminate state is used to state that collecting the ingredients has started, but the recipe is not yet complete.

  var overall = document.querySelector('input[id="EnchTbl"]');
  var ingredients = document.querySelectorAll('ul input');

  overall.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
  });

  for(var i = 0; i < ingredients.length; i++) {
    ingredients[i].addEventListener('click', updateDisplay);
  }

  function updateDisplay() {
    var checkedCount = 0;
    for(var i = 0; i < ingredients.length; i++) {
      if(ingredients[i].checked) {
        checkedCount++;
      }
    }

    if(checkedCount === 0) {
      overall.checked = false;
      overall.indeterminate = false;
    } else if(checkedCount === ingredients.length) {
      overall.checked = true;
      overall.indeterminate = false;
    } else {
      overall.checked = false;
      overall.indeterminate = true;
    }
  }

Validation

Checkboxes do support validation (offered to all <input>s). However, most of the ValidityStates will always be false. If the checkbox has the required attribute, but is not checked, then ValidityState.valueMissing will be true.

Examples

The following example is an extended version of the "multiple checkboxes" example we saw above — it has more standard options, plus an "other" checkbox that when checked causes a text field to appear to enter a value for the "other" option. This is achieved with a simple block of JavaScript. The example also includes some CSS to improve the styling.

HTML

<form>
  <fieldset>
  <legend>Choose your interests</legend>
    <div>
      <input type="checkbox" id="coding" name="interest" value="coding">
      <label for="coding">Coding</label>
    </div>
    <div>
      <input type="checkbox" id="music" name="interest" value="music">
      <label for="music">Music</label>
    </div>
    <div>
      <input type="checkbox" id="art" name="interest" value="art">
      <label for="art">Art</label>
    </div>
    <div>
      <input type="checkbox" id="sports" name="interest" value="sports">
      <label for="sports">Sports</label>
    </div>
    <div>
      <input type="checkbox" id="cooking" name="interest" value="cooking">
      <label for="cooking">Cooking</label>
    </div>
    <div>
      <input type="checkbox" id="other" name="interest" value="other">
      <label for="other">Other</label>
      <input type="text" id="otherValue" name="other">
    </div>
    <div>
      <button type="submit">Submit form</button>
    </div>
  </fieldset>
</form>

CSS

html {
  font-family: sans-serif;
}

form {
  width: 600px;
  margin: 0 auto;
}

div {
  margin-bottom: 10px;
}

fieldset {
  background: cyan;
  border: 5px solid blue;
}

legend {
  padding: 10px;
  background: blue;
  color: cyan;
}

JavaScript

var otherCheckbox = document.querySelector('input[value="other"]');
var otherText = document.querySelector('input[id="otherValue"]');
otherText.style.visibility = 'hidden';

otherCheckbox.addEventListener('change', () => {
  if(otherCheckbox.checked) {
    otherText.style.visibility = 'visible';
    otherText.value = '';
  } else {
    otherText.style.visibility = 'hidden';
  }
});

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• <input> and the HTMLInputElement interface which implements it.
• The :checked and :indeterminate CSS selectors let you style checkboxes based on their current state
• Compatibility of CSS properties