Web/API/Event/defaultPrevented

The defaultPrevented read-only property of the Event interface returns a Boolean indicating whether or not the call to Event.preventDefault() canceled the event.

Note: You should use this instead of the non-standard, deprecated getPreventDefault() method (see bug 691151).

Syntax

var defaultWasPrevented = event.defaultPrevented;

Value

A Boolean, where true indicates that the default user agent action was prevented, and false indicates that it was not.

Example

This example logs attempts to visit links from two <a> elements. JavaScript is used to prevent the second link from working.

HTML

<p><a id="link1" href="#link1">Visit link 1</a></p>
<p><a id="link2" href="#link2">Try to visit link 2</a> (you can't)</p>
<p id="log"></p>

JavaScript

function stopLink(event) {
  event.preventDefault();
}

function logClick(event) {
  const log = document.getElementById('log');
 
  if (event.target.tagName === 'A') {
    if (event.defaultPrevented) {
      log.innerText = 'Sorry, but you cannot visit this link!\n' + log.innerText;
    }
    else {
      log.innerText = 'Visiting link...\n' + log.innerText;
    }
  }
}

const a = document.getElementById('link2');
a.addEventListener('click', stopLink);
document.addEventListener('click', logClick);

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
DOMThe definition of 'Event.defaultPrevented()' in that specification.	Living Standard

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

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
defaultPrevented	Chrome Full support 18	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 6	IE Full support 9	Opera Full support 11	Safari Full support 5	WebView Android Full support Yes	Chrome Android Full support 18	Firefox Android Full support 6	Opera Android Full support 11	Safari iOS Full support 5	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0

Legend

Full support  

Full support

Event.defaultPrevented by Mozilla Contributors is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5.