HTMLMediaElement: canPlayType() method

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 HTMLMediaElement method canPlayType() reports how likely it is that the current browser will be able to play media of a given MIME type.

Syntax

js
canPlayType(type)

Parameters

type

A string specifying the MIME type of the media and (optionally) a codecs parameter containing a comma-separated list of the supported codecs.

Return value

A string indicating how likely it is that the media can be played. The string will be one of the following values:

"" (empty string)

The media cannot be played on the current device.

probably

The media is probably playable on this device.

maybe

There is not enough information to determine whether the media can play (until playback is actually attempted).

Examples

js
let obj = document.createElement("video");
console.log(obj.canPlayType("video/mp4")); // "maybe"

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# dom-navigator-canplaytype-dev

Browser compatibility

See also