Web/CSS/initial

The initial CSS keyword applies the initial (or default) value of a property to an element. It can be applied to any CSS property. This includes the CSS shorthand all, with which initial can be used to restore all CSS properties to their initial state.

On inherited properties, the initial value may be unexpected. You should consider using the inherit, unset, or revert keywords instead.

Examples

Using initial to reset color for an element

HTML

<p>
  <span>This text is red.</span>
  <em>This text is in the initial color (typically black).</em>
  <span>This is red again.</span>
</p>

CSS

p {
  color: red;
}

em {
  color: initial;
}

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
CSS Cascading and Inheritance Level 4The definition of 'initial' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	No changes from Level 3.
CSS Cascading and Inheritance Level 3The definition of 'initial' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Initial definition.

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
initial	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 13	Firefox Full support 19 Full support 19 No support 1 — 24 Prefixed' Prefixed' Implemented with the vendor prefix: -moz-	IE No support No	Opera Full support 15	Safari Full support 1.2	WebView Android Full support 1	Chrome Android Full support 18	Firefox Android Full support 19 Full support 19 No support 4 — 24 Prefixed' Prefixed' Implemented with the vendor prefix: -moz-	Opera Android Full support 14	Safari iOS Full support 1	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0

Legend

Full support  

Full support

No support  

No support

Requires a vendor prefix or different name for use.'

Requires a vendor prefix or different name for use.

See also

• Use unset to set a property to its inherited value if it inherits, or to its initial value if not.
• Use revert to reset a property to the value established by the user-agent stylesheet (or by user styles, if any exist).
• Use inherit to make an element's property the same as its parent.
• The all property lets you reset all properties to their initial, inherited, reverted, or unset state at once.

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