animation-direction

The animation-direction CSS property indicates whether the animation should play in reverse on alternate cycles.

It is often convenient to use the shorthand property animation to set all animation properties at once.

Initial value	normal
Applies to	all elements, ::before and ::after pseudo-elements
Inherited	no
Media	visual
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete
Canonical order	the unique non-ambiguous order defined by the formal grammar

Syntax

/* Single animation */
animation-direction: normal;
animation-direction: reverse;
animation-direction: alternate;
animation-direction: alternate-reverse;

/* Multiple animations */
animation-direction: normal, reverse;
animation-direction: alternate, reverse, normal;

/* Global values */
animation-direction: inherit;
animation-direction: initial;
animation-direction: unset;

Values

normal

The animation should play forward each cycle. In other words, each time the animation cycles, the animation will reset to the beginning state and start over again. This is the default animation direction setting.

reverse

The animation plays backward each cycle. Each time the animation cycles, the animation resets to the end state and starts over again.

alternate

The animation should reverse direction each cycle. When playing in reverse, the animation steps are performed backward. In addition, timing functions are also reversed; for example, an ease-in animation is replaced with an ease-out animation when played in reverse. The count to determine if it is an even or an odd iteration starts at one.

alternate-reverse

The animation plays backward on the first play-through, then forward on the next, then continues to alternate. The count to determinate if it is an even or an odd iteration starts at one.

Formal syntax

<single-animation-direction>#
where 
<single-animation-direction> = normal | reverse | alternate | alternate-reverse

Examples

See CSS animations for examples.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
CSS Animations The definition of 'animation-direction' in that specification.	Working Draft	Initial definition

Browser compatibility

[1] In addition to the unprefixed support, Gecko 44.0 (Firefox 44.0 / Thunderbird 44.0 / SeaMonkey 2.41) added support for a -webkit prefixed version of the property for web compatibility reasons behind the preference layout.css.prefixes.webkit, defaulting to false. Since Gecko 49.0 (Firefox 49.0 / Thunderbird 49.0 / SeaMonkey 2.46) the preference defaults to true.

See also

• Using CSS animations
• AnimationEvent