Detect click inside/outside of element with single event handler

Solution 1:

Here's a one liner that doesn't require jquery using Node.contains:

// Get arbitrary element with id "my-element"
var myElementToCheckIfClicksAreInsideOf = document.querySelector('#my-element');
// Listen for click events on body
document.body.addEventListener('click', function (event) {
    if (myElementToCheckIfClicksAreInsideOf.contains(event.target)) {
        console.log('clicked inside');
    } else {
        console.log('clicked outside');
    }
});

If you're wondering about the edge case of checking if the click is on the element itself, Node.contains returns true for the element itself (e.g. element.contains(element) === true) so this snippet should always work.

Browser support seems to cover pretty much everything according to that MDN page as well.

Solution 2:

Using jQuery:

$(function() {
  $("body").click(function(e) {
    if (e.target.id == "myDiv" || $(e.target).parents("#myDiv").length) {
      alert("Inside div");
    } else {
      alert("Outside div");
    }
  });
})

#myDiv {
  background: #ff0000;
  width: 25vw;
  height: 25vh;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="myDiv"></div>

Solution 3:

Using jQuery, and assuming that you have <div id="foo">:

jQuery(function($){
  $('#foo').click(function(e){
    console.log( 'clicked on div' );
    e.stopPropagation(); // Prevent bubbling
  });
  $('body').click(function(e){
    console.log( 'clicked outside of div' );
  });
});

Edit: For a single handler:

jQuery(function($){
  $('body').click(function(e){
    var clickedOn = $(e.target);
    if (clickedOn.parents().andSelf().is('#foo')){
      console.log( "Clicked on", clickedOn[0], "inside the div" );
    }else{
      console.log( "Clicked outside the div" );
  });
});

Solution 4:

Rather than using the jQuery .parents function (as suggested in the accepted answer), it's better to use .closest for this purpose. As explained in the jQuery api docs, .closest checks the element passed and all its parents, whereas .parents just checks the parents. Consequently, this works:

$(function() {
    $("body").click(function(e) {
        if ($(e.target).closest("#myDiv").length) {
            alert("Clicked inside #myDiv");
        } else { 
            alert("Clicked outside #myDiv");
        }
    });
})