Window: close() method

The Window.close() method closes the current window, or the window on which it was called.

Windows are script-closable if they were created by web content. This generally includes:

• Windows opened using Window.open()
• Windows opened via web content, such as links (<a target="_blank">) or forms (<form target="_blank">), without user modifier actions

Windows opened by browser UI actions — such as right-click → Open in new tab, Ctrl+Click, Shift+Click, or middle-click — are often not script-closable. They may only be closed if they have not been navigated (history length remains 1). Calling close() otherwise typically shows a console warning: Scripts may not close windows that were not opened by script.

Note also that close() has no effect when called on Window objects returned by HTMLIFrameElement.contentWindow.

Syntax

close()

Parameters

None.

Return value

None (undefined).

Examples

Closing a window opened with window.open()

This example shows a method which opens a window and a second one which closes the window; this demonstrates how to use Window.close() to close a window opened by calling window.open().

// Global variable to store a reference to the opened window
let openedWindow;

function openWindow() {
  openedWindow = window.open("more-info.htm");
}

function closeOpenedWindow() {
  openedWindow.close();
}

Specifications

Browser compatibility