How to Get HTML Elements with Multiple Classes with JavaScript?

Sometimes, we want to get multiple elements with multiple classes with JavaScript.

In this article, we’ll look at how to get HTML elements with multiple classes with JavaScript.

Get HTML Elements with Both Classes

To get HTML elements with both classes, we can use the getElementsByClassName or querySelectorAll methods.

For instance, if we have the following HTML:

<div class='class1'>  
  foo  
</div>  
<div class='class2'>  
  bar  
</div>  
<div class='class1 class2'>  
  baz  
</div>

Then we can get the div with text ‘baz’ by writing:

const list1 = document.getElementsByClassName("class1 class2");  
const list2 = document.querySelectorAll(".class1.class2");  
console.log(list1)  
console.log(list2)

We call getElementsByClassName with 'class1 class2' to get the div with both class1 and class2 present.

Likewise, we can do the same with querySelectorAll by using the “.class1.class2” CSS selector.

Then list1 is the HTMLCollection with the 3rd div.

And list2 is the NodeList with the 3rd div.

Get HTML Elements with At Least One Class

We can get HTML elements with at least one class by using the querySelector method.

For instance, if we have the following HTML:

<div class='class1'>  
  foo  
</div>  
<div class='class2'>  
  bar  
</div>  
<div class='class1 class2'>  
  baz  
</div>

Then we can write:

const list = document.querySelectorAll(".class1,.class2");  
console.log(list)

We use “.class1,.class2” with querySelectorAll to get elements with class1 or class2 or both as the class.

And so list is a NodeList with all 3 elements.

Get HTML Elements with One Class But Not Both

We can also use querySelector to get HTML elements with one class but not both.

For instance, if we have the following HTML:

<div class='class1'>  
  foo  
</div>  
<div class='class2'>  
  bar  
</div>  
<div class='class1 class2'>  
  baz  
</div>

Then we write:

const list = document.querySelectorAll(".class1:not(.class2),.class2:not(.class1)");  
console.log(list)

We use the :not pseudo-selector to exclude class2 with class1 and class1 with class2 .

So list is a NodeList with the first 2 divs.

Get HTML Elements with None of the Classes or One Class Only

To get all the elements with none of the classes or only one of the classes applied to it, we can use the :not pseudo-selector again.

For instance, if we have the following HTML:

<div class='class1'>  
  foo  
</div>  
<div class='class2'>  
  bar  
</div>  
<div class='class1 class2'>  
  baz  
</div>

Then we can write:

const list = document.querySelectorAll(":not(.class1),:not(.class2)");  
console.log(list)

And we get all the elements in the page but the div with text baz.

Get HTML Elements with None of the Classes

To get the HTML elements with none of the classes, we can use the :not pseudo-selector again.

For instance, if we have the following HTML:

<div class='class1'>  
  foo  
</div>  
<div class='class2'>  
  bar  
</div>  
<div class='class1 class2'>  
  baz  
</div>

Then we can write:

const list = document.querySelectorAll(":not(.class1):not(.class2)");  
console.log(list)

to select anything but the divs with class1 or class2 .

Conclusion

We can use querySelector to select element with any combinations of the classes applied to an element we want.