Web/API/Element/wheel event

The wheel event fires when the user rotates a wheel button on a pointing device (typically a mouse).

This event replaces the non-standard deprecated mousewheel event.

Bubbles	Yes
Cancelable	Yes
Interface	`WheelEvent`
Event handler property	`onwheel`

Note: Don't confuse the wheel event with the scroll event. The default action of a wheel event is implementation-specific, and doesn't necessarily dispatch a scroll event. Even when it does, the delta* values in the wheel event don't necessarily reflect the content's scrolling direction. Therefore, do not rely on the wheel event's delta* properties to get the scrolling direction. Instead, detect value changes of scrollLeft and scrollTop of the target in the scroll event.

Examples

Scaling an element via the wheel

This example shows how to scale an element using the mouse (or other pointing device) wheel.

<div>Scale me with your mouse wheel.</div>

body {
  min-height: 100vh;
  margin: 0;
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
}

div {
  width: 105px;
  height: 105px;
  background: #cdf;
  padding: 5px;
}

function zoom(event) {
  event.preventDefault();

  scale += event.deltaY * -0.01;

  // Restrict scale
  scale = Math.min(Math.max(.125, scale), 4);

  // Apply scale transform
  el.style.transform = `scale(${scale})`;
}

let scale = 1;
const el = document.querySelector('div');
el.onwheel = zoom;

addEventListener equivalent

The event handler can also be set up using the addEventListener() method:

el.addEventListener('wheel', zoom);

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
UI EventsThe definition of 'wheel' in that specification.	Working Draft

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
`wheel` event	Chrome Full support 61	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 17	IE Full support 9 Notes' Full support 9 Notes' Notes' Internet Explorer only exposes the wheel event via `addEventListener`; there is no `onwheel` attribute on DOM objects. See IE bug 782835.	Opera Full support 48	Safari Full support 7	WebView Android Full support 61	Chrome Android Full support 61	Firefox Android Full support 17	Opera Android Full support 45	Safari iOS Full support 7	Samsung Internet Android Full support 8.0

Legend

Full support: Full support
See implementation notes.': See implementation notes.