Element: focus event

The focus event fires when an element has received focus. The event does not bubble, but the related focusin event that follows does bubble.

The opposite of focus is the blur event, which fires when the element has lost focus.

The focus event is not cancelable.

Syntax

Use the event name in methods like addEventListener(), or set an event handler property.

js
addEventListener("focus", (event) => {});

onfocus = (event) => {};

Event type

Event properties

This interface also inherits properties from its parent UIEvent, and indirectly from Event.

FocusEvent.relatedTarget

The element losing focus, if any.

Examples

Simple example

HTML

html
<form id="form">
  <label>
    Some text:
    <input type="text" placeholder="text input" />
  </label>
  <label>
    Password:
    <input type="password" placeholder="password" />
  </label>
</form>

JavaScript

js
const password = document.querySelector('input[type="password"]');

password.addEventListener("focus", (event) => {
  event.target.style.background = "pink";
});

password.addEventListener("blur", (event) => {
  event.target.style.background = "";
});

Result

Event delegation

There are two ways of implementing event delegation for this event: by using the focusin event, or by setting the useCapture parameter of addEventListener() to true.

HTML

html
<form id="form">
  <label>
    Some text:
    <input type="text" placeholder="text input" />
  </label>
  <label>
    Password:
    <input type="password" placeholder="password" />
  </label>
</form>

JavaScript

js
const form = document.getElementById("form");

form.addEventListener(
  "focus",
  (event) => {
    event.target.style.background = "pink";
  },
  true,
);

form.addEventListener(
  "blur",
  (event) => {
    event.target.style.background = "";
  },
  true,
);

Result

Specifications

Specification
UI Events
# event-type-focus
HTML Standard
# handler-onfocus

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also