appearance

The appearance CSS property is used to control native appearance of UI controls, that are based on operating system's theme.

Before standardization this property allowed simple elements to be shown as widgets, such as buttons or check boxes. It was considered a misfeature and authors are encouraged to use only standard keywords now.

Note: If you wish to use this property on websites, you should test it very carefully. Although it is supported in most modern browsers, its implementation varies. In older browsers, even the keyword none does not have the same effect on all form elements across different browsers, and some do not support it at all. The differences are smaller in the newest browsers.

Syntax

/* CSS Basic User Interface Module Level 4 values */
appearance: none;
appearance: auto;
appearance: menulist-button;
appearance: textfield;

/* "Compat-auto" values, which have the same effect as 'auto' */
appearance: button;
appearance: searchfield;
appearance: textarea;
appearance: push-button;
appearance: slider-horizontal;
appearance: checkbox;
appearance: radio;
appearance: square-button;
appearance: menulist;
appearance: listbox;
appearance: meter;
appearance: progress-bar;

/* Partial list of available values in Gecko */
-moz-appearance: scrollbarbutton-up;
-moz-appearance: button-bevel;

/* Partial list of available values in WebKit/Blink (as well as Gecko and Edge) */
-webkit-appearance: media-mute-button;
-webkit-appearance: caret;

/* Global values */
appearance: inherit;
appearance: initial;
appearance: revert;
appearance: unset;

Values

Standard keywords

Value Browser Description
none Firefox Chrome Safari Edge Hides certain features of widgets, such as arrow displayed in select element, indicating that list can be expanded.
auto Firefox Chrome Edge The user agent selects the appropriate special styling based on the element. Acts as none on elements with no special styling.
menulist-button Firefox Chrome Safari Edge
textfield Firefox Chrome Safari Edge
The following values are treated as equivalent to auto:
button Firefox Chrome Safari Edge The element used to be drawn like a button.
checkbox Firefox Chrome Safari Edge The element used to be drawn like a checkbox, including only the actual "checkbox" portion.
listbox Firefox Chrome Safari Edge
menulist Firefox Chrome Safari Edge
meter Chrome Safari Firefox
progress-bar Chrome Safari Firefox
push-button Chrome Safari Edge
radio Firefox Chrome Safari Edge The element used to be drawn like a radio button, including only the actual "radio button" portion.
searchfield Firefox Chrome Safari Edge
slider-horizontal Chrome Safari Edge
square-button Chrome Safari Edge
textarea Firefox Chrome Safari Edge

Non-standard keywords

The following values may be operational on historical browser versions using -moz-appearance or -webkit-appearance prefix, but not on the standard appearance property.

Value Browser Description
attachment Safari
borderless-attachment Safari
button-bevel Firefox Chrome Safari Edge
caps-lock-indicator Safari Edge
caret Firefox Chrome Safari Edge
checkbox-container Firefox The element is drawn like a container for a checkbox, which may include a prelighting background effect under certain platforms. Normally it would contain a label and a checkbox.
checkbox-label Firefox
checkmenuitem Firefox
color-well Safari input type=color
continuous-capacity-level-indicator Safari
default-button Safari Edge
discrete-capacity-level-indicator Safari
inner-spin-button Firefox Chrome Safari
image-controls-button Safari
list-button Safari datalist
listitem Firefox Chrome Safari Edge
media-enter-fullscreen-button Chrome Safari
media-exit-fullscreen-button Chrome Safari
media-fullscreen-volume-slider Safari
media-fullscreen-volume-slider-thumb Safari
media-mute-button Chrome Safari Edge
media-play-button Chrome Safari Edge
media-overlay-play-button Chrome Safari
media-return-to-realtime-button Safari
media-rewind-button Safari
media-seek-back-button Safari Edge
media-seek-forward-button Safari Edge
media-toggle-closed-captions-button Chrome Safari
media-slider Chrome Safari Edge
media-sliderthumb Chrome Safari Edge
media-volume-slider-container Chrome Safari
media-volume-slider-mute-button Safari
media-volume-slider Chrome Safari
media-volume-sliderthumb Chrome Safari
media-controls-background Chrome Safari
media-controls-dark-bar-background Safari
media-controls-fullscreen-background Chrome Safari
media-controls-light-bar-background Safari
media-current-time-display Chrome Safari
media-time-remaining-display Chrome Safari
menulist-text Firefox Chrome Safari Edge
menulist-textfield Firefox Chrome Safari Edge The element is styled as the text field for a menulist. (Not implemented for the Windows platform)
meterbar Firefox Use meter instead.
number-input Firefox
progress-bar-value Chrome Safari
progressbar Firefox The element is styled like a progress bar. Use progress-bar instead
progressbar-vertical Firefox
range Firefox
range-thumb Firefox
rating-level-indicator Safari
relevancy-level-indicator Safari
scale-horizontal Firefox
scalethumbend Firefox
scalethumb-horizontal Firefox
scalethumbstart Firefox
scalethumbtick Firefox
scalethumb-vertical Firefox
scale-vertical Firefox
scrollbarthumb-horizontal Firefox
scrollbarthumb-vertical Firefox
scrollbartrack-horizontal Firefox
scrollbartrack-vertical Firefox
searchfield-decoration Safari Edge
searchfield-results-decoration Chrome Safari Edge (Works on Chrome 51 on Windows 7)
searchfield-results-button Safari Edge
searchfield-cancel-button Chrome Safari Edge
snapshotted-plugin-overlay Safari
sheet None
slider-vertical Chrome Safari Edge
sliderthumb-horizontal Chrome Safari Edge
sliderthumb-vertical Chrome Safari Edge
textfield-multiline Firefox Use textarea instead.
-apple-pay-button Safari iOS and macOS only. Available on the web starting in iOS 10.1 and macOS 10.12.1

Formal definition

Initial valuenone
Applies toall elements
Inheritedno
Computed valueas specified
Animation typediscrete

Formal syntax

none | auto | textfield | menulist-button | <compat-auto>

where
<compat-auto> = searchfield | textarea | push-button | slider-horizontal | checkbox | radio | square-button | menulist | listbox | meter | progress-bar | button

Examples

Make an element look like a menulist button

.exampleone {
-webkit-appearance: menulist-button;
   -moz-appearance: menulist-button;
        appearance: menulist-button;
}

Apply custom styling

HTML

<select class="none">
  <option>appearance: none</option>
</select>
<select class="auto">
  <option>appearance: auto</option>
</select>

CSS

.none {
  appearance: none;
}
.auto {
  appearance: auto;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Basic User Interface Module Level 4
# appearance-switching

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also