Selecting all text in HTML text input when clicked

Question

I have the following code to display a textbox in a HTML webpage.

<input type="text" id="userid" name="userid" value="Please enter the user ID" />

When the page displays, the text contains the Please enter the user ID message. However, I found that the user needs to click 3 times in order to select all the text (in this case it is Please enter the user ID).

Is it possible to select the entire text with only one click?

Edit:

Sorry, I forgot to say: I must use the input type="text"

Answer 1

You can use the JavaScript .select() method for HTMLElement:

<label for="userid">User ID</label>
<input onClick="this.select();" value="Please enter the user ID" id="userid" />

But apparently it doesn't work on mobile Safari. In those cases you can use:

<input onClick="this.setSelectionRange(0, this.value.length)" value="Sample Text" id="userid" />

Answer 2

The previously posted solutions have two quirks:

1. In Chrome the selection via .select() doesn't stick - adding a slight timeout resolves this issue.
2. It's impossible to place the cursor at a desired point after focus.

Here's a complete solution that selects all text on focus, but allows selecting a specific cursor point after focus.

$(function () {
    var focusedElement;
    $(document).on('focus', 'input', function () {
        if (focusedElement == this) return; //already focused, return so user can now place cursor at specific point in input.
        focusedElement = this;
        setTimeout(function () { focusedElement.select(); }, 100); //select all text in any field on focus for easy re-entry. Delay sightly to allow focus to "stick" before selecting.
    });
});

Answer 3

Html (you'll have to put the onclick attribute on every input you want it to work for on the page)

 <input type="text" value="click the input to select" onclick="this.select();"/>

OR A BETTER OPTION

jQuery (this will work for every text input on the page, no need to change your html):

<script  type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.js"></script>  
<script type="text/javascript">
    $(function(){
        $(document).on('click','input[type=text]',function(){ this.select(); });
    });
</script>

Answer 4

You should not use this approach to provide examples for input values (any more).

The best option is to now use the placeholder HTML attribute if possible:

<label for="userid">User ID</label>
<input type="text" id="userid" name="userid" placeholder="Please enter the user ID" />

This will cause the text to show unless a value is entered, eliminating the need to select text or clear inputs.

Beware that placeholders are no replacement for labels, as they disappear once text is entered, and pose issues for accessibility.

Answer 5

You can always use document.execCommand (supported in all major browsers)

document.execCommand("selectall", null, false);

Selects all text in the currently focused element.

---

Update 2021: execCommand is now deprecated.

It's probably for the best to be honest, as it was an old IE API which had been adopted by the other browsers, and it was always a little weird to work with. Nevertheless, it was nice to have one solution which worked both with <input> fields and contenteditable elements.

.select() is probably the best way to go for <input> fields these days.

For contenteditable, the modern solution there is to use the range API.

Answer 6

Note: When you consider onclick="this.select()", At the first click, All characters will be selected, After that maybe you wanted to edit something in input and click among characters again but it will select all characters again. To fix this problem you should use onfocus instead of onclick.

Answer 7

Try:

onclick="this.select()"

It works great for me.

Answer 8

The answers listed are partial according to me. I have linked below two examples of how to do this in Angular and with JQuery.

This solution has the following features:

• Works for all browsers that support JQuery, Safari, Chrome, IE, Firefox, etc.
• Works for Phonegap/Cordova: Android and IOs.
• Only selects all once after input gets focus until next blur and then focus
• Multiple inputs can be used and it does not glitch out.
• Angular directive has great re-usage simply add directive select-all-on-click
• JQuery can be modified easily

JQuery: http://plnkr.co/edit/VZ0o2FJQHTmOMfSPRqpH?p=preview

$("input").blur(function() {
  if ($(this).attr("data-selected-all")) {
  //Remove atribute to allow select all again on focus        
  $(this).removeAttr("data-selected-all");
  }
});

$("input").click(function() {
  if (!$(this).attr("data-selected-all")) {
    try {
      $(this).selectionStart = 0;
      $(this).selectionEnd = $(this).value.length + 1;
      //add atribute allowing normal selecting post focus
      $(this).attr("data-selected-all", true);
    } catch (err) {
      $(this).select();
      //add atribute allowing normal selecting post focus
      $(this).attr("data-selected-all", true);
    }
  }
});

Angular: http://plnkr.co/edit/llcyAf?p=preview

var app = angular.module('app', []);
//add select-all-on-click to any input to use directive
app.directive('selectAllOnClick', [function() {
  return {
    restrict: 'A',
    link: function(scope, element, attrs) {
      var hasSelectedAll = false;
      element.on('click', function($event) {
        if (!hasSelectedAll) {
          try {
            //iOS, Safari, thows exception on Chrome etc
            this.selectionStart = 0;
            this.selectionEnd = this.value.length + 1;
            hasSelectedAll = true;
          } catch (err) {
            //Non iOS option if not supported, e.g. Chrome
            this.select();
            hasSelectedAll = true;
          }
        }
      });
      //On blur reset hasSelectedAll to allow full select
      element.on('blur', function($event) {
        hasSelectedAll = false;
      });
    }
  };
}]);

Answer 9

input autofocus, with onfocus event:

<INPUT onfocus="this.select();" TYPE="TEXT" NAME="thing" autofocus>

This lets you open a form with the desired element selected. It works by using autofocus to hit the input, which then sends itself an onfocus event, which in turn selects the text.

Answer 10

I was looking for a CSS-only solution and found this works for iOS browsers (tested safari and chrome).

It does not have the same behavior on desktop chrome, but the pain of selecting is not as great there because you have a lot more options as a user (double-click, ctrl-a, etc):

.select-all-on-touch {
    -webkit-user-select: all;
    user-select: all;
}

Answer 11

Indeed, use onclick="this.select();" but remember not to combine it with disabled="disabled" - it will not work then and you will need to manually select or multi-click to select, still. If you wish to lock the content value to be selected, combine with the attribute readonly.

Answer 12

You can replace

<input type="text" id="userid" name="userid" value="Please enter the user ID" />

With:

<input type="text" id="userid" name="userid" placeholder="Please enter the user ID" />

The placeholder is used to replace value as how you wanted people to be able to Type in the text box without having to click multiple times or using ctrl + a. Placeholder makes it so it isn't a value but as the name suggests a place holder. That is what is used in multiple online forms that says "Username here" or "Email" and when you click on it the "Email" disappears and you can start typing right away.

Answer 13

I think its better to control via event. This variant looks pretty intuitively and work with ts as well:

    onFocus={e => {
      e.target.select();
    }

If you need selectAll every click then you can use this:

    onClick={e => {
      e.target.focus();
      e.target.select();
    }

Answer 14

Here's a reusable version of Shoban's answer:

<input type="text" id="userid" name="userid"
 value="Please enter the user ID" onfocus="Clear(this);"
/>

function Clear(elem)
{
elem.value='';
}

That way you can reuse the clear script for multiple elements.

Answer 15

Here's an example in React, but it can be translated to jQuery on vanilla JS if you prefer:

class Num extends React.Component {

    click = ev => {
        const el = ev.currentTarget;
        if(document.activeElement !== el) {
            setTimeout(() => {
                el.select();    
            }, 0);
        }
    }

    render() {
        return <input type="number" min={0} step={15} onMouseDown={this.click} {...this.props} />
    }
}

The trick here is to use onMouseDown because the element has already received focus by the time the "click" event fires (and thus the activeElement check will fail).

The activeElement check is necessary so that they user can position their cursor where they want without constantly re-selecting the entire input.

The timeout is necessary because otherwise the text will be selected and then instantly unselected, as I guess the browser does the cursor-positioning check afterwords.

And lastly, the el = ev.currentTarget is necessary in React because React re-uses event objects and you'll lose the synthetic event by the time the setTimeout fires.

Answer 16

The exact solution to what you asked is :

<input type="text" id="userid" name="userid" value="Please enter the user ID" onClick="this.setSelectionRange(0, this.value.length)"/>

But I suppose,you are trying to show "Please enter the user ID" as a placeholder or hint in the input. So,you can use the following as a more efficient solution:

<input type="text" id="userid" name="userid" placeholder="Please enter the user ID" />

Answer 17

<label for="userid">User ID</label>
<input onClick="this.select();" value="Please enter the user ID" id="userid" />

Answer 18

The problem with catching the click event is that each subsequent click within the text will select it again, whereas the user was probably expecting to reposition the cursor.

What worked for me was declaring a variable, selectSearchTextOnClick, and setting it to true by default. The click handler checks that the variable's still true: if it is, it sets it to false and performs the select(). I then have a blur event handler which sets it back to true.

Results so far seem like the behavior I'd expect.

(Edit: I neglected to say that I'd tried catching the focus event as someone suggested,but that doesn't work: after the focus event fires, the click event can fire, immediately deselecting the text).

Answer 19

Html like this <input type="text" value="click the input to select" onclick="javascript:textSelector(this)"/>

and javascript code without bind

function textSelector(ele){
    $(ele).select();
}

Answer 20

Use "placeholder" instead of "value" in your input field.

Answer 21

Well this is normal activity for a TextBox.

Click 1 - Set focus

Click 2/3 (double click) - Select text

You could set focus on the TextBox when the page first loads to reduce the "select" to a single double-click event.

Answer 22

Use this:

var textInput = document.querySelector("input");
textInput.onclick = function() {
  
  textInput.selectionStart = 0;
  textInput.selectionEnd = textInput.value.length;

}

<input type="text">

Answer 23

I'm using the focus-attribute in my vue application

<input @focus="$event.target.select()" />

Answer 24

If you are using AngularJS, you can use a custom directive for easy access:

define(['angular'], function () {
    angular.module("selectionHelper", [])
    .directive('selectOnClick', function () {
        return {
            restrict: 'A',
            link: function (scope, element, attrs) {                
                element.on('click', function () {
                    this.select();
                });
            }
        };
    });
});

Now one can just use it like this:

<input type="text" select-on-click ... />

The sample is with requirejs - so the first and the last line can be skipped if using something else.

Answer 25

If anyone want to do this on page load w/ jQuery (sweet for search fields) here is my solution

jQuery.fn.focusAndSelect = function() {
    return this.each(function() {
        $(this).focus();
        if (this.setSelectionRange) {
            var len = $(this).val().length * 2;
            this.setSelectionRange(0, len);
        } else {
            $(this).val($(this).val());
        }
        this.scrollTop = 999999;
    });
};

(function ($) {
    $('#input').focusAndSelect();
})(jQuery);

Based on this post . Thanks to CSS-Tricks.com

Answer 26

If you are just trying to have placeholder text that gets replaced when a user selects the element then it is obviously best practice to use placeholder attribute nowadays. However, if you want to select all of the current value when a field gains focus then a combination of @Cory House and @Toastrackenigma answers seems to be most canonical. Use focus and focusout events, with handlers that set/release the current focus element, and select all when focused. An angular2/typescript example is as follows (but would be trivial to convert to vanilla js):

Template:

<input type="text" (focus)="focus()" (focusout)="focusout()" ... >

Component:

private focused = false;

public focusout = (): void => {
    this.focused = false;
};

public focus = (): void => {
    if(this.focused) return;
    this.focused = true;

    // Timeout for cross browser compatibility (Chrome)
    setTimeout(() => { document.execCommand('selectall', null, false); });
};

Answer 27

If you are looking for a pure vanilla javascript method, you can also use:

document.createRange().selectNodeContents( element );

This will select all the text and is supported by all major browsers.

To trigger the selection on focus, you just need to add the event listener like so:

document.querySelector( element ).addEventListener( 'focusin', function () {

    document.createRange().selectNodeContents( this );

} );

If you want to place it inline in your HTML, then you can do this:

<input type="text" name="myElement" onFocus="document.createRange().selectNodeContents(this)'" value="Some text to select" />

This is just another option. There appears to be a few ways of doing this. (document.execCommand("selectall") as mentioned here as well)

document.querySelector('#myElement1').addEventListener('focusin', function() {

  document.createRange().selectNodeContents(this);

});

<p>Cicking inside field will not trigger the selection, but tabbing into the fields will.</p>
<label for="">JS File Example<label><br>
<input id="myElement1" value="This is some text" /><br>
<br>
<label for="">Inline example</label><br>
<input id="myElement2" value="This also is some text" onfocus="document.createRange().selectNodeContents( this );" />

Answer 28

Using placeholder="Please enter the user ID" instead of value="Please enter the user ID" is the best approach for this scenario, but the function can be useful in some cases.

<input> elements can already listen to focus event. We can just add the event listener to it instead of document, and there is no further needs to listen to click.

Plain JavaScript:

document.getElementById("userid").addEventListener("focus", function() {
    this.select();
});

With JQuery:

$("#userid").on("focus", function() {
    this.select();
});

You may use this.setSelectionRange(0, this.value.length) instead of this.select() depends on your purpose but that will not work on some input types such as number.

Answer 29

Live demo

<input id="my_input" style="width: 400px; height: 30px;" value="some text to select">
<br>
<button id="select-bn" style="width: 100px; height: 30px; margin-top: 20px;cursor:pointer;">Select all</button>
<br><br>
OR 
<br><br>
Click to copy
<br><br>
<input id="my_input_copy" style="width: 400px; height: 30px;" value="some text to select and copy">
<br>
<button id="select-bn-copy" style="width: 170px; height: 30px; margin-top: 20px;cursor:pointer;">Click copy text</button>


<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).on('click', '#select-bn', function() {
  $("#my_input").select();
});


//click to select and copy to clipboard

var text_copy_bn = document.getElementById("select-bn-copy");
text_copy_bn.addEventListener('click', function(event) {
  var copy_text = document.getElementById("my_input_copy");
  copy_text.focus();
  copy_text.select();
  try {
    var works = document.execCommand('copy');
    var msg = works ? 'Text copied!' : 'Could not copy!';
    alert(msg);
  } catch (err) {
    alert('Sorry, could not copy');
  }
});
</script>