The HTMLMediaElement method canPlayType() reports how likely it is that the current browser will be able to play media of a given MIME type.

Note: This feature is not available in This feature is not available in Web Workers

Syntax

canPlayResponse = audioOrVideo.canPlayType(mediaType);

Parameters

mediaType A DOMString containing the MIME type of the media.

Return value

A DOMString indicating how likely it is that the media can be played. The string will be one of the following values:

probably Media of the type indicated by the mediaType parameter is probably playable on this device. maybe Not enough information is available to determine for sure whether or not the media will play until playback is actually attempted. "" (empty string) Media of the given type definitely can't be played on the current device.

Example

var obj = document.createElement('video'); console.log(obj.canPlayType('video/mp4')); // "maybe"

Specifications

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

Update compatibility data on GitHub Desktop Mobile Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari Android webview Chrome for Android Firefox for Android Opera for Android Safari on iOS Samsung Internet canPlayType() Chrome Full support Yes Edge Full support 12 Firefox Full support 3.5 Notes Full support 3.5 Notes Notes Prior to Firefox 28, canPlayType() returned probably when asked about WebM audio or video files without the codecs parameter. Since multiple codecs are supported, this is not enough information to determine if a file can be played, so maybe is now correctly returned. IE Full support 9 Opera Full support Yes Safari Full support 6 WebView Android Full support Yes Chrome Android Full support Yes Firefox Android Full support Yes Opera Android Full support Yes Safari iOS Full support Yes Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes Legend Full support Full support See implementation notes. See implementation notes.

See also