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}}