Web/API/Window/localStorage

The read-only localStorage property allows you to access a Storage object for the Document's origin; the stored data is saved across browser sessions. localStorage is similar to sessionStorage, except that while data stored in localStorage has no expiration time, data stored in sessionStorage gets cleared when the page session ends — that is, when the page is closed. (Data in a localStorage object created in a "private browsing" or "incognito" session is cleared when the last "private" tab is closed.)

Data stored in either localStorage is specific to the protocol of the page. In particular, data stored by a script on a site accessed with HTTP (e.g., http://example.com) is put in a different localStorage object from the same site accessed with HTTPS (e.g., https://example.com).

The keys and the values are always ' in the UTF-16 DOMString format, which uses two bytes per character. As with objects, integer keys are automatically converted to strings.

Syntax

myStorage = window.localStorage;

Value

A Storage object which can be used to access the current origin's local storage space.

Exceptions

SecurityError: The request violates a policy decision, or the origin is not a valid scheme/host/port tuple (this can happen if the origin uses the file: or data: scheme, for example). For example, the user may have their browser configured to deny permission to persist data for the specified origin.

Example

The following snippet accesses the current domain's local Storage object and adds a data item to it using Storage.setItem().

localStorage.setItem('myCat', 'Tom');

The syntax for reading the localStorage item is as follows:

const cat = localStorage.getItem('myCat');

The syntax for removing the localStorage item is as follows:

localStorage.removeItem('myCat');

The syntax for removing all the localStorage items is as follows:

localStorage.clear();

Note: Please refer to the Using the Web Storage API article for a full example.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living StandardThe definition of 'localStorage' in that specification.	Living Standard

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
`localStorage`	Chrome Full support 4	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 3.5	IE Full support 8	Opera Full support 10.5	Safari Full support 4	WebView Android Full support ≤37	Chrome Android Full support 18	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support 11	Safari iOS Full support 3.2	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0

Legend

Full support: Full support