Web/CSS/@media/forced-colors

The forced-colors CSS media feature is used to detect if the user agent has enabled a forced colors mode where it enforces a user-chosen limited color palette on the page.

Note: This feature is not supported by any user agent and its specifics are subject to change.

Syntax

The forced-colors media feature indicates whether or not the browser is currently in forced-colors mode.

Values

none: Forced colors mode is not active; the page’s colors are not being forced into a limited palette.
active: Indicates that forced colors mode is active. The browser provides the color palette to authors through the CSS system color keywords and, if appropriate, it triggers the appropriate value of prefers-color-scheme so that authors can adapt the page.

Usage notes

Properties affected by forced-color mode

In forced colors mode, the values of the following properties are treated as if they have no author-level values specified. That is, user-specified values (if any) or browser-specified values are used instead.

You can use system color keywords with any property other than those listed above, to ensure that the rest of the page integrates with the restricted color palette available in forced colors mode.

User preferences

Currently no user agent implements this feature, although various operating systems do support such preferences and if this media query is ever implemented user agents will likely rely on the settings provided by the operating system in use.

Examples

Note: No browser currently implements this feature so the following example will not work.

This example has an annoying color palette by default. This example does not take advantage of the colors provided by the user agent.

HTML

<div class="colors">weird color box</div>

CSS

.colors {
  background-color: red;
  color: grey; 
}

@media (forced-colors: active) {
  .colors {
    background-color: white;
    color: black;
  }
}

Result

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
Media Queries Level 5The definition of 'forced-colors' in that specification.	Editor's Draft	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
`forced-colors` media feature Experimental'	Chrome Full support 79 Notes' Disabled' Full support 79 Notes' Disabled' Notes' See bug 970285. Disabled' From version 79: this feature is behind the `#forced-colors` preference (needs to be set to `Enabled`). To change preferences in Chrome, visit chrome://flags.	Edge Full support 79	Firefox Full support 81 Disabled' Full support 81 Disabled' Disabled' From version 81: this feature is behind the `layout.css.forced-colors.enabled` preference (needs to be set to `true`). To change preferences in Firefox, visit about:config.	IE No support No	Opera No support No	Safari No support No	WebView Android No support No Notes' No support No Notes' Notes' See bug 970285.	Chrome Android No support No Notes' No support No Notes' Notes' See bug 970285.	Firefox Android No support No	Opera Android No support No	Safari iOS No support No	Samsung Internet Android No support No Notes' No support No Notes' Notes' See bug 970285.

Legend

Full support: Full support
No support: No support
Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.': Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.
See implementation notes.': See implementation notes.
User must explicitly enable this feature.': User must explicitly enable this feature.