Document.body

The Document.body property represents the <body> or <frameset> node of the current document, or null if no such element exists.

Syntax

var objRef = document.body;
document.body = objRef;

Example

// Given this HTML: <body id="oldBodyElement"></body>
alert(document.body.id); // "oldBodyElement"

var aNewBodyElement = document.createElement("body");

aNewBodyElement.id = "newBodyElement";
document.body = aNewBodyElement;
alert(document.body.id); // "newBodyElement"

Notes

document.body is the element that contains the content for the document. In documents with <body> contents, returns the <body> element, and in frameset documents, this returns the outermost <frameset> element.

Though body is settable, setting a new body on a document will effectively remove all the current children of the existing <body> element.

Specification

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living Standard The definition of 'Document.body' in that specification.	Living Standard
HTML 5.1 The definition of 'Document.body' in that specification.	Recommendation
HTML5 The definition of 'Document.body' in that specification.	Recommendation
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 HTML Specification The definition of 'Document.body' in that specification.	Obsolete
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification The definition of 'Document.body' in that specification.	Obsolete	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
`body`	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 2 Notes Full support 2 Notes Notes The `body` property was implemented on the `HTMLDocument` interface in Firefox for a long time, hence `document.body` would not return the `<body>` element if the document's `Content-Type` was not set to `text/html` or `application/xhtml+xml` (or if it came from `DOMParser.parseFromString` without the `text/html` type being used). This has been fixed in Firefox 60.	IE Full support 6	Opera Full support 9.6	Safari Full support 4	WebView Android Full support Yes	Chrome Android Full support Yes	Firefox Android Full support Yes Notes Full support Yes Notes Notes The `body` property was implemented on the `HTMLDocument` interface in Firefox for a long time, hence `document.body` would not return the `<body>` element if the document's `Content-Type` was not set to `text/html` or `application/xhtml+xml` (or if it came from `DOMParser.parseFromString` without the `text/html` type being used). This has been fixed in Firefox 60.	Opera Android Full support Yes	Safari iOS Full support 5	Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes

Legend

Full support: Full support
See implementation notes.: See implementation notes.