The AbortSignal.timeout() static method returns an AbortSignal that will automatically abort after a specified time.

The signal aborts with a TimeoutError DOMException on timeout, or with AbortError DOMException due to pressing a browser stop button (or some other inbuilt "stop" operation). This allow UIs to differentiate timeout errors, which typically require user notification, from user-triggered aborts that do not.

The timeout is based on active rather than elapsed time, and will effectively be paused if the code is running in a suspended worker, or while the document is in a back-forward cache ("bfcache").

time

The "active" time in milliseconds before the returned AbortSignal will abort.

An AbortSignal.

The signal will abort with its AbortSignal.reason property set to a TimeoutError DOMException on timeout, or an AbortError DOMException if the operation was user-triggered.

A simple example showing a fetch operation that will timeout if unsuccessful after 5 seconds, is shown below. Note that this may also fail if the method is not supported, if a browser "stop" button is pressed, or for some other reason.

const url = "https://path_to_large_file.mp4";

try {
  const res = await fetch(url, { signal: AbortSignal.timeout(5000) });
  const result = await res.blob();
  // …
} catch (err) {
  if (err.name === "TimeoutError") {
    console.error("Timeout: It took more than 5 seconds to get the result!");
  } else if (err.name === "AbortError") {
    console.error(
      "Fetch aborted by user action (browser stop button, closing tab, etc.",
    );
  } else if (err.name === "TypeError") {
    console.error("AbortSignal.timeout() method is not supported");
  } else {
    // A network error, or some other problem.
    console.error(`Error: type: ${err.name}, message: ${err.message}`);
  }
}