How to check if IE11 is in compatibility view using JS

Question

I'd like to check if IE11 compatibility view is enabled for the current domain. Setting compatibility view is through: Tools > Compatibility View Settings.

I know this has been asked by a few a couple of years ago but looks like the answers doesn't work anymore due to recent update on IE11.

Does anyone know an alternative way to do this?

Possible duplicate of [How to detect IE11?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17907445/how-to-detect-ie11) — Obsidian Age, Oct 17 '17 at 01:41
Not quite the same. This is how to check IE 11 for Compatibility Mode. The above link is for checking just IE 11 version. — Jimmy Long, Oct 17 '17 at 03:02
seems like you just need to look for `compatible` at the start of the userAgent — Jaromanda X, Oct 17 '17 at 03:09
@JaromandaX IE11 has been updated and doesn't contain the string compatible anymore — Byron, Oct 18 '17 at 03:31
you say that, but I'm sure I've got the latest IE11 (in windows 10) and when I add a site to `compatibility view`, the userAgent definitely still has `compatible` in it — Jaromanda X, Oct 18 '17 at 03:35
@JaromandaX I'm testing using browser stack and I don't get it on win10 or win7. The only way I could get it is using IE10. Also tested win10 machine and no luck. How tdo you set compatibility view? Is it under Tools > Compatibility View Settings? — Byron, Oct 18 '17 at 03:55
yes that's where it is - normal userAgent is `Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko` ... post compatibility view it's `Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; Trident/7.0;)` (removed the .NET stuff for clarity) - About IE11: `Version: 11.674.15063.0`, `Update Versions: 11.0.47` — Jaromanda X, Oct 18 '17 at 03:57

david25272 · Answer 1 · 2017-10-18T23:37:22.373

In IE versions 8-11 You can use document.documentMode. Valid values are 5, 7 (compatibility mode), 8, 9, 10, and 11 (Edge).

Setting compatibility mode in the console changes the value directly.
Loading a page with a <meta http-equiv tag changes the value
Adding a site to compatibility mode in "Tools -> Compatibility View settings" changes the value to 7.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj676915(v=vs.85).aspx

Examples

For example if I load this page in IE11 I get documentMode of 11.

<!doctype HTML>
<body>
<p>Hello World!<p>
</body>

This page loaded in IE11 sets documentMode to 9.

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="IE=9"/>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hello World!<p>
</body>
</html>

I'd like to detect if compatibility view is enabled not compatibility mode under dev tools which I think you're referring to emulation tab. On IE11 setting compatibility view is through -- Tools > Compatibility View Settings — Byron, Oct 18 '17 at 03:25

User · Answer 2 · 2017-10-23T20:41:33.070

If you just wanting to check if you are being run in compatibility mode you can use this script.

// Create new ieUserAgent object

var ieUserAgent = {

init: function () {

// Get the user agent string

var ua = navigator.userAgent;

this.compatibilityMode = false;

   // alert (ua);

    if(ua.indexOf("MSIE") == -1){

        this.version = 0;

        return 0;

    }

    if(ua.indexOf("compatible") == -1){

        this.compatibilityMode = false;

        return 0;

    }else{

        this.compatibilityMode = true;

        return 0;

    }

}
};

// Initialize the ieUserAgent object
ieUserAgent.init();

-OR-

/** * Check if client is IE and in compatibility view * * @returns {boolean} */

function isIECompatibilityMode() {

    var ua = navigator.userAgent;

    if (ua.indexOf("MSIE") == -1) {

        return false;

    }

    return (ua.indexOf("compatible") != -1); }

Thanks Janaki but this is same as the old solution, The IE11 update I mentioned above removed the string "MSIE" regardless if you're in compatibility view or not so this wouldn't work. — Byron, Oct 17 '17 at 02:14

How to check if IE11 is in compatibility view using JS

2 Answers2