:placeholder-shown

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨January 2020⁩.

The :placeholder-shown CSS pseudo-class represents any <input> or <textarea> element that is currently displaying placeholder text.

Try it

label {
  display: block;
  margin-top: 1em;
}

input:placeholder-shown {
  background-color: ivory;
  border: 2px solid darkorange;
  border-radius: 5px;
}

<form>
  <label for="name">Full Name:</label>
  <input id="name" name="name" type="text" />

  <label for="email">Email Address:</label>
  <input id="email" name="email" type="email" placeholder="name@example.com" />

  <label for="age">Your age:</label>
  <input
    id="age"
    name="age"
    type="number"
    value="18"
    placeholder="You must be 18+" />
</form>

Syntax

css

:placeholder-shown {
  /* ... */
}

Examples

Basic example

This example applies special font and border styles when the placeholder is shown.

HTML

html

<input placeholder="Type something here!" />

CSS

css

input {
  border: 1px solid black;
  padding: 3px;
}

input:placeholder-shown {
  border-color: teal;
  color: purple;
  font-style: italic;
}

Result

Overflowing text

When form fields are too small, placeholder text can get cropped in an undesirable way. You can use the text-overflow property to alter the way overflowing text is displayed.

HTML

html

<input id="input1" placeholder="Name, Rank, and Serial Number" /> <br /><br />
<input id="input2" placeholder="Name, Rank, and Serial Number" />

CSS

css

#input2:placeholder-shown {
  text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

Result

Customized input field

The following example highlights the Student ID field with a custom style.

HTML

html

<form id="test">
  <p>
    <label for="name">Enter Student Name:</label>
    <input id="name" placeholder="Student Name" />
  </p>
  <p>
    <label for="branch">Enter Student Branch:</label>
    <input id="branch" placeholder="Student Branch" />
  </p>
  <p>
    <label for="sid">Enter Student ID:</label>
    <input
      type="number"
      pattern="[0-9]{8}"
      title="8 digit ID"
      id="sid"
      class="student-id"
      placeholder="8 digit id" />
  </p>
  <input type="submit" />
</form>

CSS

css

input {
  background-color: #e8e8e8;
  color: black;
}

input.student-id:placeholder-shown {
  background-color: yellow;
  color: red;
  font-style: italic;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
HTML # selector-placeholder-shown
Selectors Level 4 # placeholder-shown-pseudo

Browser compatibility

Help improve MDN

Learn how to contribute

This page was last modified on ⁨Jul 14, 2025⁩ by MDN contributors.

View this page on GitHub • Report a problem with this content