HTMLMediaElement: preload 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 preload property of the HTMLMediaElement interface is a string that provides a hint to the browser about what the author thinks will lead to the best user experience.

It reflects the preload attribute of the <audio> element and the <video> element.

Value

A string. Possible values are as follows:

none

Indicates that the media should not be preloaded.

metadata

Indicates that only media metadata (e.g. length) is fetched.

auto

Indicates that the whole media file can be downloaded, even if the user is not expected to use it.

empty string

A synonym of the auto value.

Examples

html
<video
  id="el"
  controls
  src="https://example.com/media.mp4"
  poster="https://example.com/media.jpg"
  width="800"
  height="600"
  preload="metadata">
  Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos, but don't worry, you can
  <a href="https://example.com/media.mp4" download="media.mp4">download it</a>
  and watch it with your favorite video player!
</video>
js
const el = document.getElementById("el");
console.log(el.preload); // Output: "metadata"

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# dom-media-preload

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
preload

Legend

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

Full support
Full support