String.prototype.padStart()

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since April 2017.

The padStart() method of String values pads this string with another string (multiple times, if needed) until the resulting string reaches the given length. The padding is applied from the start of this string.

Try it

const str1 = "5";

console.log(str1.padStart(2, "0"));
// Expected output: "05"

const fullNumber = "2034399002125581";
const last4Digits = fullNumber.slice(-4);
const maskedNumber = last4Digits.padStart(fullNumber.length, "*");

console.log(maskedNumber);
// Expected output: "************5581"

Syntax

js
padStart(targetLength)
padStart(targetLength, padString)

Parameters

targetLength

The length of the resulting string once the current str has been padded. If the value is less than or equal to str.length, then str is returned as-is.

padString Optional

The string to pad the current str with. If padString is too long to stay within the targetLength, it will be truncated from the end. The default value is the unicode "space" character (U+0020).

Return value

A String of the specified targetLength with padString applied from the start.

Examples

Basic examples

js
"abc".padStart(10); // "       abc"
"abc".padStart(10, "foo"); // "foofoofabc"
"abc".padStart(6, "123465"); // "123abc"
"abc".padStart(8, "0"); // "00000abc"
"abc".padStart(1); // "abc"

Fixed width string number conversion

js
// JavaScript version of: (unsigned)
// printf "%0*d" width num
function leftFillNum(num, targetLength) {
  return num.toString().padStart(targetLength, "0");
}

const num = 123;
console.log(leftFillNum(num, 5)); // "00123"

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript® 2025 Language Specification
# sec-string.prototype.padstart

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobileserver
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
Deno
Node.js
padStart

Legend

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Full support
Full support

See also