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Element: copy event

The copy event fires when the user initiates a copy action through the browser's user interface.

The event's default action is to copy the selection (if any) to the clipboard.

A handler for this event can modify the clipboard contents by calling setData(format, data) on the event's ClipboardEvent.clipboardData property, and cancelling the event's default action using event.preventDefault().

However, the handler cannot read the clipboard data.

It's possible to construct and dispatch a synthetic copy event, but this will not affect the system clipboard.

Syntax

Use the event name in methods like addEventListener(), or set an event handler property.

js

addEventListener("copy", (event) => {});

oncopy = (event) => {};

Event type

Examples

Live example

HTML

html

<div class="source" contenteditable="true">Copy text from this box.</div>
<div class="target" contenteditable="true">And paste it into this one.</div>

JavaScript

js

const source = document.querySelector("div.source");

source.addEventListener("copy", (event) => {
  const selection = document.getSelection();
  event.clipboardData.setData("text/plain", selection.toString().toUpperCase());
  event.preventDefault();
});

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet
copy_event 1 12 22
9Before Internet Explorer 9, this event is not supported via addEventListener; however, the event handler is supported since IE 5.5. The event can be listened to via element.oncopy.
≤12.1 3 4.4 18 22 ≤12.1 3 1.0

See also

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Element/copy_event