:indeterminate

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 :indeterminate CSS pseudo-class represents any form element whose state is indeterminate, such as checkboxes that have been set to an indeterminate state with JavaScript, radio buttons which are members of a group in which all radio buttons are unchecked, and <progress> elements with no value attribute.

/* Selects any <input> whose state is indeterminate */
input:indeterminate {
  background: lime;
}

Elements targeted by this selector are:

<input type="checkbox"> elements with the indeterminate property set to true.
<input type="radio"> elements with the same name value and none of them checked.
<progress> elements with no value, placing them in an indeterminate state.

Syntax

:indeterminate {
  /* ... */
}

Examples

Checkbox & radio button

This example applies special styles to the labels associated with indeterminate form fields.

HTML

<fieldset>
  <legend>Checkbox</legend>
  <div>
    <input type="checkbox" id="checkbox" />
    <label for="checkbox">This checkbox label starts out lime.</label>
  </div>
</fieldset>

<fieldset>
  <legend>Radio</legend>
  <div>
    <input type="radio" id="radio1" name="radioButton" value="val1" />
    <label for="radio1">First radio label starts out lime.</label>
  </div>
  <div>
    <input type="radio" id="radio2" name="radioButton" value="val2" />
    <label for="radio2">Second radio label also starts out lime.</label>
  </div>
</fieldset>

CSS

input:indeterminate + label {
  background: lime;
}

JavaScript

const inputs = document.getElementsByTagName("input");

for (const input of inputs) {
  input.indeterminate = true;
}

Result

Progress bar

HTML

<progress></progress>

CSS

progress {
  margin: 4px;
}

progress:indeterminate {
  width: 80vw;
  height: 20px;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
HTML # selector-indeterminate
Selectors Level 4 # indeterminate-pseudo

Browser compatibility

	Desktop					Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Opera	Safari	Chrome Android	Firefox for Android	Opera Android	Safari on IOS	Samsung Internet	WebView Android
`:indeterminate`	1	12	2	9	3	18	4	10.1	1	1.0	4.4
`checkbox`	1	12	3.6	10.6	3	18	4	11	1	1.0	4.4
`progress`	6	12	6	15	5.1	18	6	14	5	1.0	37
`radio`	39	79	51	26	10	39	51	26	10	4.0	39

Syntax

Examples

Checkbox & radio button

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

Result

Progress bar

HTML

CSS

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also