How to programmatically trigger the click on a link using jQuery?

Question

be careful of being flagged as a malicious site with javascript that does that... Clicking for a user is a very unhonourable thing to do — Populus
– Populus, Commented Aug 8, 2014 at 14:44
There are legit use cases for this. If the user has already clicked on something else to trigger a process that involves this click, and the user understands what is going on, I don't see the problem. — Andrew Koster
– Andrew Koster, Commented Nov 2, 2018 at 20:31

Thomas · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-17 07:08:18Z

72

$('#your_link_id').click()

See the excellent jquery docs for more information

answered May 17, 2010 at 7:08

Thomas

8,0434 gold badges40 silver badges47 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Jag · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-30 23:26:01Z

68

If you have an anchor link:

<a id="my_link_id" href="something">My Link</a>

it will fail as other answers have mentioned. Calling .eq and .trigger('click') doesn't work for me, but this does:

$('#your_link_id').get(0).click();

In my specific case, I've assigned a blob url programmatically to the anchor's href.

edited Apr 30, 2014 at 23:26

answered Apr 16, 2014 at 1:11

Jag

1,8802 gold badges18 silver badges25 bronze badges

6 Comments

LjCode Over a year ago

After trying numerous different ways to click a span programmatically, this is the only one that works for me.

11teenth Over a year ago

Thank you. Many years later this was a min-lifesaver.

PouncingPoodle Over a year ago

This is the only one that worked for me. .trigger("click") executed the click event too many times that I would get an error: Uncaught RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded

yohan.jayarathna Over a year ago

thank you. .trigger("click") didn't work me either. this does .get(0).click(); :)

Dejan Dozet Over a year ago

So does anyone can explain why .get(0).click() works and..click() doesn't?

|

nc3b · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-17 07:10:44Z

26

You can use trigger:

$('#your_link_id').trigger('click');

answered May 17, 2010 at 7:10

nc3b

16.4k5 gold badges53 silver badges63 bronze badges

Comments

sandeep kale · Accepted Answer · 2022-10-31 09:28:18Z

15

$('#your_link_id').eq(0).trigger('click');

or you can use $('#your_link_id')[0].trigger('click');

is needed as jQuery returns an array and we cannot trigger click on multiple eventlinks. You have to target only a single element

edited Oct 31, 2022 at 9:28

answered Mar 18, 2013 at 14:06

sandeep kale

3112 silver badges10 bronze badges

2 Comments

Marcy Sutton Over a year ago

Actually this will throw an error since you're on a native element by specifying [0]. To use jQuery methods on a specific item in a collection use filter methods such as .eq(0) or .first(), or wrap the whole thing in another $(). ex: $('#your_link_id').eq(0).trigger('click')

MartinG Over a year ago

Interestingly, Marcy's solution doesn't work for me, whereas Sandeep's does. For some reason, $("#myDivIdentifier a").eq(0) still returns an array of one. $("#myDivIdentifier a")[0] gives me a single item that can be "click()"ed.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to programmatically trigger the click on a link using jQuery?

4 Answers 4

Comments

6 Comments

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

Comments

6 Comments

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related