Element: insertAdjacentElement() method

The insertAdjacentElement() method of the Element interface inserts a given element node at a given position relative to the element it is invoked upon.

Syntax

js
insertAdjacentElement(position, element)

Parameters

position

A string representing the position relative to the targetElement; must match (case-insensitively) one of the following strings:

  • 'beforebegin': Before the targetElement itself.
  • 'afterbegin': Just inside the targetElement, before its first child.
  • 'beforeend': Just inside the targetElement, after its last child.
  • 'afterend': After the targetElement itself.
element

The element to be inserted into the tree.

Return value

The element that was inserted, or null, if the insertion failed.

Exceptions

SyntaxError DOMException

Thrown if the position specified is not a recognized value.

TypeError

Thrown if the element specified is not a valid element.

Visualization of position names

html
<!-- beforebegin -->
<p>
  <!-- afterbegin -->
  foo
  <!-- beforeend -->
</p>
<!-- afterend -->

Note: The beforebegin and afterend positions work only if the node is in a tree and has an element parent.

Examples

js
beforeBtn.addEventListener("click", () => {
  const tempDiv = document.createElement("div");
  tempDiv.style.backgroundColor = randomColor();
  if (activeElem) {
    activeElem.insertAdjacentElement("beforebegin", tempDiv);
  }
  setListener(tempDiv);
});

afterBtn.addEventListener("click", () => {
  const tempDiv = document.createElement("div");
  tempDiv.style.backgroundColor = randomColor();
  if (activeElem) {
    activeElem.insertAdjacentElement("afterend", tempDiv);
  }
  setListener(tempDiv);
});

Have a look at our insertAdjacentElement.html demo on GitHub (see the source code too.) Here, we have a sequence of <div> elements inside a container. When one is clicked, it becomes selected and you can then press the Insert before and Insert after buttons to insert new divs before or after the selected element using insertAdjacentElement().

Specifications

Specification
DOM Standard
# dom-element-insertadjacentelement

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also