Web/API/Window/name

The Window.name property gets/sets the name of the window's browsing context.

Syntax

string = window.name;
window.name = string;

Description

The name of the window is used primarily for setting targets for hyperlinks and forms. Browsing contexts do not need to have names.

Modern browsers will reset Window.name to an empty string if a tab loads a page from a different domain, and restore the name if the original page is reloaded (e.g. by selecting the "back" button). This prevents an untrusted page from accessing any information that the previous page might have stored in the property (potentially the new page might also modify such data, which might then be read by the original page if it was reloaded).

Window.name has also been used in some frameworks for providing cross-domain messaging (e.g. SessionVars and Dojo's dojox.io.windowName) as a more secure alternative to JSONP. Modern web applications hosting sensitive data should, however, not rely on window.name for cross-domain messaging — that is not its intended purpose and there are safer/better ways of sharing information between windows. Window.postMessage() is the recommended mechanism.

Note: window.name converts all stored values to their string representations using the toString method.

Examples

<script>
    // Open a tab with a specific browsing context name
    const otherTab = window.open("url1", "_blank");
    if (otherTab)
        otherTab.name = "other-tab";
</script>
<a href="url2" target="other-tab">This link will be opened in the other tab.</a>

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living StandardThe definition of 'Window.name' in that specification.	Living Standard
HTML5The definition of 'Window.name' in that specification.	Recommendation

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
name	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1 Notes' Full support 1 Notes' Notes' From Firefox 82, if a new page from another domain is loaded into a tab, then window.name is set to the empty string (the original string is restored if the tab reverts back to the original page). This change prevents some cross-site attacks. See bug 444222.	IE Full support 4	Opera Full support ≤12.1	Safari Full support 1	WebView Android Full support 1	Chrome Android Full support 18	Firefox Android Full support 4 Notes' Full support 4 Notes' Notes' From Firefox 82, if a new page from another domain is loaded into a tab, then window.name is set to the empty string (the original string is restored if the tab reverts back to the original page). This change prevents some cross-site attacks. See bug 444222.	Opera Android Full support ≤12.1	Safari iOS Full support 1	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0

Legend

Full support  

Full support

See implementation notes.'

See implementation notes.

Window.name by Mozilla Contributors is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5.