Window: close() method
{{APIRef}}
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
{{domxref("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 {{domxref("Window")}}
objects returned by
HTMLIFrameElement.contentWindow
.
Syntax
close()
Parameters
None.
Return value
None ({{jsxref("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 {{domxref("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
{{Specifications}}
Browser compatibility
{{Compat}}