Page history - back button exists?

Question

Is it possible check if there is a value for history.go(-1)? I know you can't access history.previous directly.

I am trying to stay away from document.referrer because I know it can be blocked in some instances.

Here is what I am trying to do. I have an error page, on this page I would like to either have a BACK button (if it's not the only item in history) or a close button (if it is).

Possible duplicate of [How to check if the user can go back in browser history or not](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3588315/how-to-check-if-the-user-can-go-back-in-browser-history-or-not) — bummi, Jan 22 '16 at 06:50

score 18 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 11 '09 at 16:52

18

if (history.length) {
    //There is history to go back to
    history.go(-1);
}

answered Jun 11 '09 at 16:52

Andreas Grech

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Ha, duh! Sometimes it's the easiest answer. – Louis W Jun 11 '09 at 18:19
3

Is there any way of checking whether the forward button exists? – Mischa Jan 10 '12 at 08:33
does this check if previous page was `about:newtab` or not ;) – Steel Brain May 30 '14 at 11:53
12

This is NOT correct because `history.length` includes not only back pages but also forward pages. So if you open a browser tab, follow link, click "back" the history length will be more then zero while you can't go back again. – Finesse Jul 13 '16 at 10:54
@Finesse I really don't know how this answer can be so voted – deFreitas Sep 10 '17 at 15:10
this will not work for pages loaded in new tab, so i made this https://stackoverflow.com/a/68161306/1348517 – manuel-84 Jun 28 '21 at 10:09

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered May 27 '11 at 09:36

15

Actually, history.length is always one or more, since the current page counts. Also, if you have a forward history (i.e. you used the back button), those pages also count. So you need a more complicated check:

if( (1 < history.length) && document.referrer ) {

answered May 27 '11 at 09:36

Johan B.W. de Vries

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2
7

1

Is there any way of checking whether the forward button exists? – Mischa Jan 10 '12 at 08:33
2

Referrer is passed if `target="_blank"` link is clicked and you can't do "back" in a new tab, so this solution is not perfect. – Finesse Jul 13 '16 at 10:55
@Finesse is right so i made this https://stackoverflow.com/a/68161306/1348517 – manuel-84 Jun 28 '21 at 10:10

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 06 '16 at 10:07

There is no cross-browser approach to accomplish this. Document.Referrer may be set even if no history entry exists.

I came up with the following "hack". It utilizes the onbeforeunload event to detect whether the browser starts leaving the page or not. If it does not in a certain timespan it'll just redirect to the fallback.

window.goBack = function goBack(fallback){
  var useFallback = true;
  window.onbeforeunload = function(){
    useFallback = false;
  }
  window.history.back();

  setTimeout(function(){
    if (useFallback){ window.location.href = fallback; }
  }, 100); 
}

You can call this function using goBack("fallback.example.org").

One of the use cases is that you may want to add a back button to any page and also want to make sure that this back button works even if the user goes directly to this page (e.g. by bookmark, direct link etc).

So either it does perform a history.back() or if there is no entry, it'll redirect to a fallback.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 11 '09 at 16:53

1

If the history has a length greater than 0, then it contains at least one history point.

if (history.length)

answered Jun 11 '09 at 16:53

Ian Elliott

7,588
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1

yeah and that history point could be `about:newtab` too right? – Steel Brain May 30 '14 at 11:52

score -1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 08 '13 at 11:25

-1

 function test() {
        document.URL = document.referrer;            
    }

answered Jul 08 '13 at 11:25

soheil bijavar

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Page history - back button exists?

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