DataTransferItem: type property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The read-only DataTransferItem.type property returns the type (format) of the DataTransferItem object representing the drag data item. The type is a Unicode string generally given by a MIME type, although a MIME type is not required.

Some example types are: text/plain and text/html.

Value

A string representing the drag data item's type.

Examples

This example shows the use of the type property.

js
function dropHandler(ev) {
  console.log("Drop");
  ev.preventDefault();
  const data = ev.dataTransfer.items;
  for (let i = 0; i < data.length; i += 1) {
    if (data[i].kind === "string" && data[i].type.match("^text/plain")) {
      // This item is the target node
      data[i].getAsString((s) => {
        ev.target.appendChild(document.getElementById(s));
      });
    } else if (data[i].kind === "string" && data[i].type.match("^text/html")) {
      // Drag data item is HTML
      console.log("… Drop: HTML");
    } else if (
      data[i].kind === "string" &&
      data[i].type.match("^text/uri-list")
    ) {
      // Drag data item is URI
      console.log("… Drop: URI");
    } else if (data[i].kind === "file" && data[i].type.match("^image/")) {
      // Drag data item is an image file
      const f = data[i].getAsFile();
      console.log("… Drop: File");
    }
  }
}

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# dom-datatransferitem-type-dev

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
type

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support

See also