Alerts

Bootstrap Alerts

Note: This documentation is for an older version of Bootstrap (v.4). A newer version is available for Bootstrap 5. We recommend migrating to the latest version of our product - Material Design for Bootstrap 5.
Go to docs v.5

Bootstrap alerts are feedback messages that are displayed after specific actions performed by the user. The length of the text is unlimited.

With the right use of colors, they add some emotional weight to our information, ranging from a simple warning to a critical system failure or from an operation successful message to a piece of neutral information.


Basic examples

Alerts are available for any text length, as well as an optional dismiss button. For proper styling, use one of the eight required contextual classes (e.g., .alert-success). For inline dismissal, then use the alerts jQuery plugin.

        
            

        <div class="alert alert-primary" role="alert">
          A simple primary alert—check it out!
        </div>
        <div class="alert alert-secondary" role="alert">
          A simple secondary alert—check it out!
        </div>
        <div class="alert alert-success" role="alert">
          A simple success alert—check it out!
        </div>
        <div class="alert alert-danger" role="alert">
          A simple danger alert—check it out!
        </div>
        <div class="alert alert-warning" role="alert">
          A simple warning alert—check it out!
        </div>
        <div class="alert alert-info" role="alert">
          A simple info alert—check it out!
        </div>
        <div class="alert alert-light" role="alert">
          A simple light alert—check it out!
        </div>
        <div class="alert alert-dark" role="alert">
          A simple dark alert—check it out!
        </div>

      
        
    

Conveying meaning to assistive technologies

Using color to add meaning only provides a visual indication that will not be conveyed to users of assistive technologies – such as screen readers. So to should ensure that any information denoted by the color is either obvious from the content itself (e.g. the visible text), or is included through alternative means, such as additional text hidden with the .sr-only class.



Additional content

Alerts can also contain additional HTML elements like headings, paragraphs and dividers.

        
            

        <div class="alert alert-success" role="alert">
          <h4 class="alert-heading">Well done!</h4>
          <p>Aww yeah, you successfully read this important alert message. This example text is going to run a bit longer so that you can see how spacing within an alert works with this kind of content.</p>
          <hr>
          <p class="mb-0">Whenever you need to, be sure to use margin utilities to keep things nice and tidy.</p>
        </div>

      
        
    

Dismissing

Using the alert JavaScript plugin, it’s possible to dismiss any alert inline. Here’s how:

  • Be sure you’ve loaded the alert plugin, or the compiled Bootstrap JavaScript.
  • If you’re building our JavaScript from source, it requires util.js. The compiled version includes this.
  • Add a dismiss button and the .alert-dismissible class, which adds extra padding to the right of the alert and positions the .close button.
  • On the dismiss button, add the data-dismiss="alert" attribute, which triggers the JavaScript functionality. Be sure to use the <button> element with it for proper behavior across all devices.
  • To animate alerts when dismissing them, be sure to add the .fade and .show classes.

You can see this in action with a live demo:

        
            

        <div class="alert alert-warning alert-dismissible fade show" role="alert">
          <strong>Holy guacamole!</strong> You should check in on some of those fields below.
          <button type="button" class="close" data-dismiss="alert" aria-label="Close">
            <span aria-hidden="true">&times;</span>
          </button>
        </div>

      
        
    

JavaScript behavior

Triggers

Enable dismissal of an alert via JavaScript:

        
            

          $('.alert').alert()

        
        
    

Or with data attributes on a button within the alert, as demonstrated above:

        
            

          <button type="button" class="close" data-dismiss="alert" aria-label="Close">
            <span aria-hidden="true">&times;</span>
          </button>

        
        
    

Note that closing an alert will remove it from the DOM.


Methods

Method Description
$().alert() Makes an alert listen for click events on descendant elements which have the data-dismiss="alert" attribute. (Not necessary when using the data-api’s auto-initialization.)
$().alert('close') Closes an alert by removing it from the DOM. If the .fade and .show classes are present on the element, the alert will fade out before it is removed.
$().alert('dispose') Destroys an element’s alert.
        
            

          $(".alert").alert('close')

        
        
    

Events

Bootstrap’s alert plugin exposes a few events for hooking into alert functionality.

Event Description
close.bs.alert This event fires immediately when the close instance method is called.
closed.bs.alert This event is fired when the alert has been closed (it will wait for CSS transitions to complete).
        
            

          $('#myAlert').on('closed.bs.alert', function () {
            // do something…
          })