How to change the Content of a <textarea> with JavaScript

If you can use jQuery, and I highly recommend you do, you would simply do

$('#myTextArea').val('');

Otherwise, it is browser dependent. Assuming you have

var myTextArea = document.getElementById('myTextArea');

In most browsers you do

myTextArea.innerHTML = '';

But in Firefox, you do

myTextArea.innerText = '';

Figuring out what browser the user is using is left as an exercise for the reader. Unless you use jQuery, of course ;)

Edit: I take that back. Looks like support for .innerHTML on textarea's has improved. I tested in Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, all of them cleared the textarea correctly.

Edit 2: And I just checked, if you use .val('') in jQuery, it just sets the .value property for textarea's. So .value should be fine.

Like this:

document.getElementById('myTextarea').value = '';

or like this in jQuery:

$('#myTextarea').val('');

Where you have

<textarea id="myTextarea" name="something">This text gets removed</textarea>

For all the downvoters and non-believers:

• Here's the MSDN reference

  value Property: Retrieves or sets the text in the entry field of the textArea element.

• Here's the MDN reference

  value DOMString The raw value contained in the control.