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Jatin Sharma
Jatin Sharma

Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at j471n.in

Detect When Users Switch Tabs using JavaScript

In this article, I'll show you how to find out when users change tabs in browsers using JavaScript. It's going to be fun, it's helpful to see how often the user loses his attention. You can even use it to add the data to the database (it is out of the scope of this article).

There are two ways I know how to solve this problem. So, I'll be showing you both of them.

Method - 1

In this method, we will use two event listeners focus (when the user focuses on your website or window) and blur (when the user loses focus)

We don't need HTML actually, because when users are on another tab so they won't see your website page. Only JavaScript will do:

// when the user loses focus
window.addEventListener("blur", () => {
    document.title = "Breakup";
});

// when the user's focus is back to your tab (website) again
window.addEventListener("focus", () => {
    document.title = "Patch Up";
});
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Demo-1

Method - 2

In this method, we only need one event listener (visibilitychange). It has a property called visibilityState which we can use to detect the window switching state.

document.addEventListener("visibilitychange", () => {
    // it could be either hidden or visible
    document.title = document.visibilityState;    
});
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demo-2

You can use these to add many functionality to your website such as stop music or video when the user loses focus:

document.addEventListener("visibilitychange", () => {
  if (document.visibilityState === 'visible') {
    music.play();
  } else {
    music.pause();
  }
});
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If you want to try it yourself then check out LIVE

Wrapping up:

That's all you need to detect when users switch tabs. Both methods work as expected. You can use any of them. If you enjoyed this article, then don't forget to give ❤️ and if you have any questions or feedback then don't hesitate to drop them in the comments below. I'll see in the next one.

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Top comments (31)

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edgaralves profile image
Edgar Alves

Just a side note, the "blur" event will trigger if you leave the tab opened but just focus another app on your machine... while the visibilitychange will only trigger if you switch to another tab.

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

I didn't know that, thanks for the note I'll look into it ✨

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mrdulin profile image
official_dulin

Real world usage: react-query Window Focus Refetching

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

Thanks for this mate :)

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wisdomsamuel7 profile image
Wisdom-Samuel7

Simple and a Great one

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

Thanks.

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lenardo profile image
Lenardo de Bruine

Thanks! That's useful for example to trigger people to come back :).
You can save the meta document title so when a user come's back the normall meta title is displayed.

        var documentTitle = document.title;

        window.addEventListener("blur", function() {
            document.title = "👋 Hi, come back!";
        });

        window.addEventListener("focus", function() {
            document.title = documentTitle;
        });
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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

Yes, you can do that. You can also send the notifications to the user to come back using Notifications API

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sonia58073354 profile image
Sonia

We can track the tab switch but there will be an issue when the user presses the back button.

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

Well, it depends if you have implemented this functionality on the whole website or a single page. There could be two cases-

  • When the user presses the back button and leaves the website. In this case, we can't do anything.
  • When the user presses the back button but stays on the same website then it will load the initial status of the page (visible) as the user hasn't left the tab.
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naucode profile image
Al - Naucode

Thank you for the post, bookmarked!

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

That's great. It's my pleasure ☺️

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iarchitsharma profile image
Archit Sharma

Thank you so much for this awesome article

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

This is a pleasure, the positive feedbacks are always inspiring.

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tapive profile image
Gary • Edited

You can use this to evaluate the quality of your articles. If the user switches between tabs, they may not like your article. But I wouldn't change the tab title - it's annoying.

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

Changing the title is all about showing that it works.I won't change title either.

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faizal97 profile image
Faizal Ardian Putra

Cool! Great!

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

Thanks mate 😊

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faizal97 profile image
Faizal Ardian Putra

Cool!

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andrewbaisden profile image
Andrew Baisden

Thanks for sharing this.

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

It's always a pleasure :)

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umamahesh_16 profile image
Umamaheswararao Meka

Very Good, I never realized it can be this simple, Thanks for this !!!

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jenniesworth12 profile image
Jennie Sworth

That's great.

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sohamgupta profile image
Soham Gupta

Omg I didn't know this was even possible, thanks for sharing it.

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

Yes it is possible, And now you know too. :)

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vijay_dev profile image
vijay banjara

😮

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j471n profile image
Jatin Sharma

Why are you in shock 🤔