CSS Value: currentColor

2019-04-13

There are a large number of nuanced and mostly unheard of CSS value types, but today we are going to focus on currentColor. So what is the currentColor value type anyway?

The currentColor value type will apply the existing color value to other properties like background-color, etc.

See it in action

Let’s assume with have a single div with the following properties:

div {
    color: dodgerblue;
}

If we wanted to use that same color for other properties on elements inside that initial div, it’s simple - we just need to call currentColor like so:

div {
    color: dodgerblue;
}

div header {
    background-color: currentColor;
}

div a {
    border-bottom: 1px solid currentColor;
}

Sidenote: If you re-declare the default color property further along in your CSS, the currentColor value will update according to the last color set.

And that’s it. Best of all, this value type is supported across all major browsers!