HTMLMediaElement: currentTime property

Value

A double-precision floating-point value indicating the current playback time in seconds.

If the media is not yet playing, the value of currentTime indicates the time position within the media at which playback will begin once the play() method is called.

Setting currentTime to a new value seeks the media to the given time, if the media is available.

For media without a known duration—such as media being streamed live—it's possible that the browser may not be able to obtain parts of the media that have expired from the media buffer. Also, media whose timeline doesn't begin at 0 seconds cannot be seeked to a time before its timeline's earliest time.

The length of the media in seconds can be determined using the duration property.

Examples

const video = document.createElement("video");
console.log(video.currentTime);

Usage notes

Time precision

The browser does not apply timer rounding to currentTime, including values supplied by script. Seeking can still adjust the resulting playback position to a position supported by the media.

The value of currentTime is an approximation of the current playback position. The browser updates this value as playback progresses. The HTML specification requires the reported playback position to remain stable while scripts are running.

The update frequency depends on the browser and media playback pipeline. As a result, successive reads can return the same currentTime even when Date.now() has advanced. The number of decimal places in the value does not indicate how often it updates or how accurately it matches the audio or video being presented.

For example, successive readings during playback might produce these values:

video.currentTime;
// Might be:
// 23.404
// 23.404
// 23.452
// …

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• HTMLMediaElement: Interface used to define the HTMLMediaElement.currentTime property
• HTMLMediaElement.fastSeek(): Another way to set the time
• HTMLMediaElement.duration: The duration of the media in seconds