HTMLImageElement: longDesc property

Deprecated

Avoid using this feature in new projects. This feature may be a candidate for removal from web standards or browsers.

Learn more
See full compatibility

The deprecated longDesc property of the HTMLImageElement interface specifies the URL of a text or HTML file which contains a long-form description of the image. This can be used to provide optional added details beyond the short description provided in the title attribute. It reflects the <img> element's longdesc content attribute.

This attribute is considered obsolete in the HTML spec. It has an uncertain future; authors should use a WAI-ARIA alternative such as aria-describedby or aria-details. You can also encapsulate the image within a link using the <a> element.

Value

A string which may be either an empty string (indicating that no long description is available) or the URL of a file containing a long form description of the image's contents.

Examples

Consider the following older HTML:

html

<img
  src="taco-tuesday.jpg"
  alt="Taco Tuesday"
  longdesc="image-descriptions/taco-tuesday.html" />

Here, the longDesc is used to indicate that the user should be able to access a detailed description of the image taco-tuesday.jpg in the HTML file image-descriptions/taco-tuesday.html.

This should be converted into the following HTML:

html

<a href="image-descriptions/taco-tuesday.html">
  <img src="taco-tuesday.jpg" alt="Taco Tuesday" />
</a>

With that, the image is a link to the HTML file describing the image in more detail.

Specifications

Specification
HTML # dom-img-longdesc

Browser compatibility

Help improve MDN

Was this page helpful to you?

Yes No

Learn how to contribute

This page was last modified on Nov 7, 2025 by MDN contributors.

View this page on GitHub Report a problem with this content