HTMLSelectElement: selectedIndex property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨July 2015⁩.

The selectedIndex property of the HTMLSelectElement interface is the numeric index of the first selected <option> element in a <select> element, if any, or −1 if no <option> is selected. Setting this property selects the option at that index and deselects all other options, while setting it to -1 deselects any currently selected options.

Value

A number.

Examples

HTML

html
<p id="p">selectedIndex: 0</p> <select id="select"> <option selected>Option A</option> <option>Option B</option> <option>Option C</option> <option>Option D</option> <option>Option E</option> </select> 

JavaScript

js
const selectElem = document.getElementById("select"); const pElem = document.getElementById("p"); // When a new <option> is selected selectElem.addEventListener("change", () => { const index = selectElem.selectedIndex; // Add that data to the <p> pElem.textContent = `selectedIndex: ${index}`; }); 

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# dom-select-selectedindex-dev

Browser compatibility

See also