How to get the selected option from a select box using JS?
Jul 18, 2025 am 12:59 AMTo get the selected value of the
To get the selected value of the <select></select>
drop-down box in HTML, it is actually quite straightforward to implement it with JavaScript, but novices may go around in the specific writing method. In fact, as long as you understand a few key points, it is not difficult to operate.

Get selected values with native JS
The most common way is to get the <select></select>
element through document.getElementById()
or querySelector()
and then access its value
property. This method is suitable for most basic scenarios.
const selectBox = document.getElementById('mySelect'); const selectedValue = selectBox.value;
If you are not sure how to get the element, you can do this:

-
document.querySelector('select')
: Select the first select element -
document.getElementById('your-id')
: Get more accurate according to id
Note: This method obtains value
of the currently selected item, not the text content displayed.
Get the text content of the selected item
Sometimes you may need the option text that the user sees, not value
. At this time, you have to access selectedOptions
or options
attributes.

const selectBox = document.getElementById('mySelect'); const selectedText = selectBox.options[selectBox.selectedIndex].text;
This method is suitable for scenarios where users need to display content selected, such as confirmation information after form submission.
For example:
<select id="mySelect"> <option value="1">Apple</option> <option value="2">Banana</option> <option value="3">Orange</option> </select>
If the user selects "banana", value
returned by the above method is "2"
and text
is "香蕉"
.
Listen to the changes in selected items
If you want to perform certain actions when the user selects different options, you can listen for change
events:
document.getElementById('mySelect').addEventListener('change', function() { const selectedValue = this.value; console.log('Selected:', selectedValue); });
This method is very useful in scenarios such as dynamic loading of content and linking drop-down boxes.
Tips
- If it is a multiple-select drop-down box (
multiple
attribute), you need to use traversal to get all selected items - It will be more concise if you use jQuery, but native JS is simple enough, so there is no need to introduce additional libraries.
- Pay attention to the DOM loading order, the script should be placed in the
DOMContentLoaded
event or at the end of the body
Basically all of this is it, it doesn't seem complicated, but it's easy to make mistakes due to choosing the wrong attribute or writing the wrong index.
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