Window: confirm() 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.

window.confirm() instructs the browser to display a dialog with an optional message, and to wait until the user either confirms or cancels the dialog.

Under some conditions — for example, when the user switches tabs — the browser may not actually display a dialog, or may not wait for the user to confirm or cancel the dialog.

Syntax

js
confirm()
confirm(message)

Parameters

message Optional

A string you want to display in the confirmation dialog.

Return value

A boolean indicating whether OK (true) or Cancel (false) was selected. If a browser is ignoring in-page dialogs, then the returned value is always false.

Examples

js
if (window.confirm("Do you really want to leave?")) {
  window.open("exit.html", "Thanks for Visiting!");
}

Produces:

Firefox confirm

Notes

Dialog boxes are modal windows — they prevent the user from accessing the rest of the program's interface until the dialog box is closed. For this reason, you should not overuse any function that creates a dialog box (or modal window). Regardless, there are good reasons to avoid using dialog boxes for confirmation.

Alternatively <dialog> element can be used for confirmations.

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# dom-confirm-dev

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also