Onclick javascript to make browser go back to previous page?

Question

Is there a function I can attach as a click event of a button to make the browser go back to previous page?

<input name="action" type="submit" value="Cancel"/>

Solution 1

Add this in your input element

<input
    action="action"
    onclick="window.history.go(-1); return false;"
    type="submit"
    value="Cancel"
/>

Solution 2

history.back()

or

history.go(-1)

Put this to the button onclick handle. It should look like this:

<input name="action" onclick="history.back()" type="submit" value="Cancel"/>

Solution 3

For Going to previous page

First Method

<a href="javascript: history.go(-1)">Go Back</a>

Second Method

<a href="##" onClick="history.go(-1); return false;">Go back</a> 

if we want to more than one step back then increase

For going 2 steps back history.go(-2)
For going 3 steps back history.go(-3)
For going 4 steps back history.go(-4)
and so on.......

Solution 4

<input name="action" type="submit" value="Cancel" onclick="window.history.back();"/> 

Solution 5

Simple. One line.

<button onclick="javascript:window.history.back();">Go Back</button>

Like Wim's and Malik's answer, but just in one line.

View more solutions

Comments

[John Strickler]

window.history.back()

[Vadim]

Put this to the button onClick handle

[ctrlplusb]

This doesn't work in all browsers for me, I had to do the following <input action="action" type="button" value="Back" onclick="window.history.go(-1); return false;" /> This answer is quite old, so it could have been an issue introduced into more modern versions of browsers. :)

[Jeromy French]

@JeromeJ it is a link that does nothing if JavaScript isn't enabled/working (for whatever reason) on the page. If JavaScript is working, it takes the browser back one page.

[Adrien]

Does this show the previous page from cache or reloads the previous page from the server?

[WowThatsLoud]

You could be more clear like giving the answer in the code

[Costa Michailidis]

What's the browser support on that?

[ban-geoengineering]

What's the action="action" part for? And is it valid html??

[ToolmakerSteve]

@Adrien - its javascript, so it is running in the browser. The browser should reuse cached page (assuming browser settings and page http header settings permit doing so).

[Marek Bernád]

Works fine, but oftentimes if user decides to change language on specific page with the button like this, the back button to previous page will turn the language back, instead of page...

[CheddarLizzard]

Note that inline JS should not be used in production because: 1. JS code should be in dedicated and minified .js files 2. inline JS should be disabled through a Content Security Policy to mitigate XSS injections

[Halfist]

Any idea why this not always working from the first time? It doesn't seem that this question was answered so far.

[Diego Fortes]

@Costa pretty good, unless you're developing to Opera Mini.

[Josh McGee]

some of the others didn't take me to the previous page if I had reloaded, but this one does