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

Question

Can anyone explain how to remove the orange or blue border (outline) around text/input boxes? I think it only happens on Chrome to show that the input box is active. Here's the input CSS I'm using:

input {
    background-color: transparent;
    border: 0px solid;
    height: 20px;
    width: 160px;
    color: #CCC;
}

Solution 1

This border is used to show that the element is focused (i.e. you can type in the input or press the button with Enter). You can remove it with outline property, though:

textarea:focus, input:focus{
    outline: none;
}

You may want to add some other way for users to know what element has keyboard focus though for usability.

Chrome will also apply highlighting to other elements such as DIV's used as modals. To prevent the highlight on those and all other elements as well, you can do:

*:focus {
    outline: none;
}

---

⚠️ Accessibility warning

Please notice that removing outline from input is an accessibility bad practice. Users using screen readers will not be able to see where their pointer is focused at. More info at a11yproject

Solution 2

The current answer didn't work for me with Bootstrap 3.1.1. Here's what I had to override:

.form-control:focus {
  border-color: inherit;
  -webkit-box-shadow: none;
  box-shadow: none;
}

Solution 3

input:focus {
    outline:none;
}

This will do. Orange outline won't show up anymore.

Solution 4

<input style="border:none" >

Worked well for me. Wished to have it fixed in html itself ... :)

Solution 5

I've found the solution.
I used: outline:none; in the CSS and it seems to have worked. Thanks for the help anyway. :)

View more solutions

Comments

[Adrien Be]

note that oulines also appear in different cases: in IE9 you can see little dots around a button if you select it using tab (ie. you click inside a field before the button & go to the next fields using Tab until you reach the button [going to previous field is Shift + Tab])

[Luca Reghellin]

...And in case someone needs to remove it from select elements in firefox: notes.jerzygangi.com/…

[Phoenix]

Use border-style: none; background-color: white; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; color: black;

[Frank Forte]

As @Torkil-Johnsen mentioned in a comment below, you might want to give a different style to make it more obvious, but to just remove it is very bad for accessibility (e.g. people who only use a keyboard or other assistive device to tab through elements).

[Yosep Tito]

try this css, it work for me textarea:focus, input:focus{ border: none; }

[RoToRa]

That's the focus outline you are removing. It's there for a reason: Usability. Especially keyboard users will hate it if you remove it.

[ShrekOverflow]

@RoToRa what if he crafts a better one using shadows CSS 3 ?

[Joe Pigott]

This is not working for me. I am using Chrome, latest update. I put input:focus {outline: 0;} in the CSS, but when I type, the blue Mac outline is still there.

[Mackelito]

Don't use !important unless you REALLY MUST use it.

[BetaCoder]

Instead of input:focus{ outline: 0; } -> outline:none; Works

[Alain Zelink]

Problem is when you already use outline. For ex : "outline: .5em solid black !important;". Chrome still does something which reduces the width and it also gets rid of the box-shadow which I'm also using.

[aceofspades]

Use outline: none

[Nantoka]

outline-style: none works well with Chromium (version 34) and Firefox (version 30)

[Torkil Johnsen]

It's bad for accessibility to remove this outline that is default on :focus. This means that users using the keyboard to navigate will have a hard time seeing which link/item is highlighted when they hit tab. If anything, the highlighting of the element should be enhanced to make it more obvious which item has focus.

[mattumotu]

Don't do it unless you provide some other styling, it's important for accesability. see outlinenone.com

[UserInteractive]

box-shadow: none; did the trick for me. When I put in on the element without :focus it also removes a very subtle shadow that Chrome puts on border-less and input boxes.

[Mike Gledhill]

Actually, this CSS isn't enough. For example, if you're using JQueryUI tabs, the ugly blue border appears after you click on a tab, if you just use your CSS. You do need to add a:focus or li:focus, to prevent the border.

[Fuzzy Analysis]

<input style="border:0px" > also works, as well.

[Crispen Smith]

@TorkilJohnsen, While I agree 100% that the element should be visibly focused the default blue/orange ring behaviour is not always the right strategy. As long as some strategy is adopted (and adopted consistently across a design system) then CSS should be authored to support that decision.

[Leo]

you can triple that: input { border: 0 none transparent }

[Gilberto Sánchez]

Be careful with the transparent definition on the background-color attribute. You don't need that and you probably will have a big problem when you need to write something (you won't find the inputs!). By the way, personally, I would change the transparent background to select a color. For example, if my container has a red color, I would use a white background on the input.

[Rob]

@Mackelito You must use !important to work with Bootstrap

[arun8]

When I add border:none to a css class, its still showing the border for the input field. where as the inline css style="border:none" is working

[Brad Ahrens]

This worked for me. For some reason input:focus { outline:none;} did not work.

[Naren Verma]

This worked for me. I am using FF latest browser and outline: none is not working.

[Steve Snow]

This solution also works for bootstrap v4.

[brandito]

@arun8 sounds like your CSS selector isn't the highest 'priority' (forgot the word but its like, the importance of your selector e.g p > span.class is more important than just span.class so it will use the code in p > span.class

[Kailas]

@arun8 you can try using "!important" in your css class

[Carl]

nope, not working on Chrome

[gtamborero]

On bootstrap 4, if the outline you want to remove is round the hamburger mobile menu, you can just use: <button class="navbar-toggler" style="outline:none;" ...>

[I_am_learning_now]

box-shadow alone worked for me! Thank you!

[Fakeer]

this worked for me on chrome. outline:none did not

[Glenn Maynard]

How is it better practice? You need to explain why, not just say so. It's definitely not better practice.

[zoran404]

The question may have "border" in the title, but the OP is actually asking about the default outline

[CommonSenseCode]

this is bad for accessibility and shouldn't be done.

[matthaeus]

I even had to put box-shadow: none!important; to keep bootstrap from added that border box shadow

[Jacob]

@brandito the word you're looking for is "specificity"

[Renato]

This answer promotes creating inaccessible solution which prevents a lot of people from using important applications. Even with the "accessibility warning" at the bottom, most people would not bother to read it below. This answer needs to be hidden or heavily modified so that at the top is an accessible solution and below with a big warning with working like "Previous Answer: Do not use it!" the inaccessible solution.