Web/API/TouchEvent/touches

touches is a read-only TouchList listing all the Touch objects for touch points that are currently in contact with the touch surface, regardless of whether or not they've changed or what their target element was at touchstart time.

You can think of it as how many separate fingers are able to be identified as touching the screen.

Syntax

var touches = touchEvent.touches;

Return value

touches: A TouchList listing all the Touch objects for touch points that are still in contact with the touch surface, regardless of whether or not they've changed or what their target element was at touchstart time.

Example

This example illustrates the TouchEvent object's TouchEvent.touches property. The TouchEvent.touches property is a TouchList object and containing a list of Touch objects for every point of contact currently touching the surface.

In following code snippet, the touchstart event handler checks the length of the TouchEvent.touches list to determine the number of touch points that were activated and then invokes different handlers depending on the number of touch points.

someElement.addEventListener('touchstart', function(e) {
   // Invoke the appropriate handler depending on the 
   // number of touch points.
   switch (e.touches.length) {
     case 1: handle_one_touch(e); break;
     case 2: handle_two_touches(e); break;
     case 3: handle_three_touches(e); break;
     default: console.log("Not supported"); break;
   }   
 }, false);

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
Touch Events – Level 2	Draft	Non-stable version.
Touch Events	Recommendation	Initial definition.

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
`touches`	Chrome Full support 22	Edge Full support ≤18	Firefox Full support 52 Full support 52 No support 18 — 24	IE No support No	Opera Full support Yes	Safari No support No	WebView Android Full support Yes	Chrome Android Full support Yes	Firefox Android Full support 6	Opera Android Full support Yes	Safari iOS Full support Yes	Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes

Legend

Full support: Full support
No support: No support

TouchEvent.touches by Mozilla Contributors is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5.