user-select

The user-select CSS property controls whether the user can select text. This doesn't have any effect on content loaded as part of a browser's user interface (its chrome), except in textboxes.

Syntax

css

/* Keyword values */
user-select: none;
user-select: auto;
user-select: text;
user-select: contain;
user-select: all;

/* Global values */
user-select: inherit;
user-select: initial;
user-select: revert;
user-select: revert-layer;
user-select: unset;

Note: user-select is not an inherited property, though the initial auto value makes it behave like it is inherited most of the time. WebKit/Chromium-based browsers do implement the property as inherited, which violates the behavior described in the spec, and this will bring some issues. Until now, Chromium has chosen to fix the issues to make the final behavior meet the specifications.

Values

none

The text of the element and its sub-elements is not selectable. Note that the Selection object can contain these elements.

auto

The used value of auto is determined as follows:

On the ::before and ::after pseudo elements, the used value is none
If the element is an editable element, the used value is contain
Otherwise, if the used value of user-select on the parent of this element is all, the used value is all
Otherwise, if the used value of user-select on the parent of this element is none, the used value is none
Otherwise, the used value is text

text

The text can be selected by the user.

all

The content of the element shall be selected atomically: If a selection would contain part of the element, then the selection must contain the entire element including all its descendants. If a double-click or context-click occurred in sub-elements, the highest ancestor with this value will be selected.

contain

Enables selection to start within the element; however, the selection will be contained by the bounds of that element.

Note: CSS UI 4 renamed the element value to contain.

Formal definition

Initial value	`auto`
Applies to	all elements
Inherited	no
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete

Formal syntax

user-select = 
  auto     |
  text     |
  none     |
  contain  |
  all

Examples

HTML

html

<p>You should be able to select this text.</p>
<p class="unselectable">Hey, you can't select this text!</p>
<p class="all">Clicking once will select all of this text.</p>

CSS

css

.unselectable {
  -webkit-user-select: none; /* Safari */
  user-select: none;
}

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

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Basic User Interface Module Level 4 # content-selection

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser