Element: pointerdown event

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. Its been available across browsers since July 2020.

Learn more
See full compatibility

The pointerdown event is fired when a pointer becomes active. For mouse, it is fired when the device transitions from no buttons pressed to at least one button pressed. For touch, it is fired when physical contact is made with the digitizer. For pen, it is fired when the stylus makes physical contact with the digitizer.

This behavior is different from mousedown events. When using a physical mouse, mousedown events fire whenever any button on a mouse is pressed down. pointerdown events fire only upon the first button press; subsequent button presses don't fire pointerdown events.

Note: For touchscreen browsers that allow direct manipulation, a pointerdown event triggers implicit pointer capture, which causes the target to capture all subsequent pointer events as if they were occurring over the capturing target. Accordingly, pointerover, pointerenter, pointerleave, and pointerout will not fire as long as this capture is set. The capture can be released manually by calling element.releasePointerCapture on the target element, or it will be implicitly released after a pointerup or pointercancel event.

Syntax

Use the event name in methods like addEventListener(), or set an event handler property.

addEventListener("pointerdown", (event) => { })

onpointerdown = (event) => { }

Event type

A PointerEvent. Inherits from Event.

Event UIEvent MouseEvent PointerEvent

Examples

Using addEventListener():

const para = document.querySelector("p");

para.addEventListener("pointerdown", (event) => {
  console.log("Pointer down event");
});

Using the onpointerdown event handler property:

const para = document.querySelector("p");

para.onpointerdown = (event) => {
  console.log("Pointer down event");
};

Specifications

Specification
Pointer Events # the-pointerdown-event
Pointer Events # dom-globaleventhandlers-onpointerdown

Browser compatibility

Help improve MDN

Was this page helpful to you?

Yes No

Learn how to contribute

This page was last modified on Jul 28, 2026 by MDN contributors.

View this page on GitHub Report a problem with this content