Web/API/WindowEventHandlers/onpopstate

The onpopstate property of the WindowEventHandlers mixin is the EventHandler for processing popstate events on the window.

A popstate event is dispatched to the window each time the active history entry changes between two history entries for the same document. If the activated history entry was created by a call to history.pushState(), or was affected by a call to history.replaceState(), the popstate event's state property contains a copy of the history entry's state object.

Note: Calling history.pushState() or history.replaceState() won't trigger a popstate event. The popstate event is only triggered by performing a browser action, such as clicking on the back button (or calling history.back() in JavaScript), when navigating between two history entries for the same document.

Syntax

window.onpopstate = funcRef;

funcRef is a handler function.

Examples

For example, a page at http://example.com/example.html running the following code will generate alerts as indicated:

window.onpopstate = function(event) {
  alert("location: " + document.location + ", state: " + JSON.stringify(event.state));
};

history.pushState({page: 1}, "title 1", "?page=1");
history.pushState({page: 2}, "title 2", "?page=2");
history.replaceState({page: 3}, "title 3", "?page=3");
history.back(); // alerts "location: http://example.com/example.html?page=1, state: {"page":1}"
history.back(); // alerts "location: http://example.com/example.html, state: null
history.go(2);  // alerts "location: http://example.com/example.html?page=3, state: {"page":3}

Note that even though the original history entry (for http://example.com/example.html) has no state object associated with it, a popstate event is still fired, when we activate that entry after the second call to history.back().

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living StandardThe definition of 'onpopstate' 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
`onpopstate`	Chrome Full support 5	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 4	IE Full support 10	Opera Full support 11.5	Safari Full support 6	WebView Android Full support 37	Chrome Android Full support 18	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support 11.5	Safari iOS Full support 5.1	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0

Legend

Full support: Full support