Animation: reverse() method

Baseline Widely available

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

The Animation.reverse() method of the Animation Interface reverses the playback direction, meaning the animation ends at its beginning. If called on an unplayed animation, the whole animation is played backwards. If called on a paused animation, the animation will continue in reverse.

Syntax

reverse()

Parameters

None.

Return value

None (undefined).

Examples

In the Growing/Shrinking Alice Game example, clicking or tapping the bottle causes Alice's growing animation (aliceChange) to play backwards, causing her to get smaller. It is done by setting aliceChange's Animation.playbackRate to -1 like so:

const shrinkAlice = () => {
  // play Alice's animation in reverse
  aliceChange.playbackRate = -1;
  aliceChange.play();

  // play the bottle's animation
  drinking.play();
};

But it could also have been done by calling reverse() on aliceChange like so:

const shrinkAlice = () => {
  // play Alice's animation in reverse
  aliceChange.reverse();

  // play the bottle's animation
  drinking.play();
};

Specifications

Specification
Web Animations # dom-animation-reverse

Browser compatibility

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