Sentry Answers>CSS>

How to remove focus border (outline) around text/input boxes

How to remove focus border (outline) around text/input boxes

Matthew C.

The Problem

You want to remove the focus outline around an input element. You may want to do this because you don’t like the outline styling, which may also differ between browsers. How do you do this?

The Solution

You can set the outline CSS shorthand property to “none”:

Click to Copy
input:focus { outline: none; }

The problem with this solution is that users who navigate websites using their keyboard will not know which input is in focus.

Instead of removing the outline, you can give it a specific style, which will normalize the style across different browsers.

If you remove the outline, style the input when it’s focused. For example:

Click to Copy
input:focus { outline: none; color: blue; border: 1px solid black; text-decoration: underline; box-shadow: 0 1px 6px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); border-radius: 0.5rem; }

Note that you should not only use color to indicate that the input is focused as colorblind people may not be able to distinguish between the focused and non-focused state.

  • Syntax.fmHasty Treat - CSS Grid Masonry (Grid Level 3)
  • Syntax.fmListen to the Syntax Podcast
  • Syntax.fmHasty Treat - CSS Grid Level 2 aka Subgrid
  • Syntax.fm logo
    Listen to the Syntax Podcast

    Tasty treats for web developers brought to you by Sentry. Get tips and tricks from Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski.

    SEE EPISODES

Considered “not bad” by 4 million developers and more than 100,000 organizations worldwide, Sentry provides code-level observability to many of the world’s best-known companies like Disney, Peloton, Cloudflare, Eventbrite, Slack, Supercell, and Rockstar Games. Each month we process billions of exceptions from the most popular products on the internet.

© 2024 • Sentry is a registered Trademark of Functional Software, Inc.