How To Generate a Random Color in JavaScript

Here’s a quicky (there is a PHP version too):

var randomColor = Math.floor(Math.random()*16777215).toString(16);

See the Pen
Generate New Random Hex Color with JavaScript by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier)
on CodePen.

If you’d prefer they are a bit more pleasing or need to generator colors that work together, we have an article about that.

Comments

Vladimir Sobolev

# December 21, 2009

Sometimes script make wrong string, 5 chars only.

Eliazer

Permalink to comment# December 21, 2009

This should fix this problem, (it is also more readable).

‘#’+(Math.random()*0xFFFFFF<<0).toString(16);
Ken

Permalink to comment# October 3, 2010

The formula is incorrect. here is a corrected version:

var x=Math.round(0xffffff * Math.random()).toString(16);
var y=(6-x.length);
var z=”000000″;
var z1 = z.substring(0,y);
var color= “#” + z1 + x;

This way if the length of the Hex number is too short, the appropriate number of zeros are added to the beginning and you don’t get any illegal values for color.
Artem Kh

Permalink to comment# April 27, 2020

‘#’ + (Math.floor(Math.random() * 2 ** 24)).toString(16).padStart(0, 6)
km

Permalink to comment# September 23, 2020

const randomColor = Math.floor(Math.random() * 2 ** 24).toString(16).padStart(6, “0”);

Andrew

# April 3, 2012

Hi all sorry to be dense but how do I integrate this into CSS code as the example has done?

Many thanks,

Andrew.

Khayri R.R. Woulfe

Permalink to comment# December 17, 2019

Just randomize a character from the arrayed string “0123456789ABCDEF” three or six times then join the resulting string to create a valid hex color code all the time.

Dennis

# August 24, 2012

felt inspired for something small but fun.

var ds = [];
function addtods(nodes) {
	for (var i in nodes) {
		ds.push(nodes[i]);
	}
}
setInterval(function () {
	ds = [];
	addtods(document.getElementsByTagName('div'));
	addtods(document.getElementsByTagName('span'));
	addtods(document.getElementsByTagName('a'));
	addtods(document.getElementsByTagName('li'));
	addtods(document.getElementsByTagName('ul'));
	addtods(document.getElementsByTagName('textarea'));
	addtods(document.getElementsByTagName('input'));
	document.body.style.backgroundColor = '#' + (Math.random() * 0xFFFFFF &lt&lt 0).toString(16);
	document.body.style.color = '#' + (Math.random() * 0xFFFFFF &lt&lt 0).toString(16);
	for (var i in ds) {
		if (ds[i] && ds[i].style) {
			ds[i].style.backgroundColor = '#' + (Math.random() * 0xFFFFFF &lt&lt 0).toString(16);
			ds[i].style.color = '#' + (Math.random() * 0xFFFFFF &lt&lt 0).toString(16);
			ds[i].style.borderColor = '#' + (Math.random() * 0xFFFFFF &lt&lt 0).toString(16);
		}
	}
}, 10);

Michael

# June 25, 2014

Your code didn’t work for me so I rewrote it for fun

var elements = Array.prototype.slice.call(document.querySelectorAll("*"))
  , styleElements = ["h1", "a", "div", "section", "p", "ul", "li", "h2", "h3", "h4", "h5", "h6", "article", "aside", "footer", "span"]

elements = elements.filter(function(element){
  if ( styleElements.indexOf(element.nodeName.toLowerCase()) &gt; -1 ) return true
})

var colors = function() {
  elements.forEach(function(element) {
    element.style.backgroundColor = '#'+(Math.random()*0xFFFFFF&lt;&lt;0).toString(16)
    element.style.color = '#'+(Math.random()*0xFFFFFF&lt;&lt;0).toString(16)
    element.style.borderColor = '#'+(Math.random()*0xFFFFFF&lt;&lt;0).toString(16)
  })

  window.setTimeout(colors, 1000)
}

colors()

Michael

Permalink to comment# June 25, 2014

and then I realized it didnt work because the preview escapes less than signs :/

Oh well. Awesome Idea :)

Brenden

# September 21, 2012

A function you could use is this:

function getRandomColor() {
        var letters = '0123456789ABCDEF'.split('');
        var color = '#';
        for (var i = 0; i < 6; i++ ) {
            color += letters[Math.round(Math.random() * 15)];
        }
        return color;
    }

There is a preview of it here, just click the button:
http://sweb1.dmit.nait.ca/~bkoepke1/Random%20Colour%20Generator/

royi

# January 18, 2013

because you using floor , you will never get the last value of FFFFFF

Math.random()*16777215

Basil

# February 9, 2013

How could I use this function to set a value in my CSS file?

I created a a file called randomcolor.js
var @randomColor = Math.floor(Math.random()*16777215).toString(16);

and then in my variables.less file I tried
@adjacent-color: ‘#’ + @randomColor

I also just tried doing
@adjacent-color: ‘#’+(Math.random()*0xFFFFFF<<0).toString(16);

Owen

# April 16, 2013

But you’re doing it with script. This is “CSS-tricks.com”, right? Not Javascript tricks or PHP tricks!

What I want to know is, how can you put the random number into the CSS file?

eg:

{
font-family:sans-serif;
font-size:2em;
color: white;
background-color: (random number generator here);
}

Even better would be to incorporate transitions/transforms and you could have constantly changing background colours purely done within CSS – no script necessary!

Subin

# May 16, 2014

Please update the code with https://css-tricks.com/snippets/javascript/random-hex-color/#comment-192864

That works in the all cases

Simon

# June 28, 2014

can somebody help to get the code into joomla application? i have no idea of javascript :-)
thanks

Chris

# September 13, 2014

Oh! Please! I stumbled upon this and I need it!

I want to make the menu items automatically change color so they draw the visitor’s attention.

Ideally I could set hex values, transition speed and intervals. An added bonus would be having each menu item change color sequentially.

E.g.: speed: 15ms, fff=5000ms, ff0=250ms, fcf=250ms, f90=250ms

Wow! Please help?

Vibhor Sharma

# May 22, 2018

‘#’ + Math.random().toString(16).slice(2, 8).toUpperCase();

Sebastian "Kuchen" Kucharczyk

# July 28, 2018

It is enough to use the following limits for random numbers,
so that the hexa result will always be 6 characters long: …

const min = Math.pow(2, 20);
const max = Math.pow(2, 24) – 1;

const color = Math.floor(Math.random() * ( max – min + 1 )) + min;

The last used random() routine is “Math.random.integer()” in my codes. ;-)

Sebastian Kucharczyk

Permalink to comment# October 20, 2018

My mistake … min = 0; and color.padStart(6, ‘0’); ..

Wanderson

# February 6, 2019

function generateColor () {
return #${Array.from({ length: 6 }, () => randomItem(colorValues)).join('')};
}

LeetCodes

# June 17, 2019

thanks for this, i simplified it a bit using 8⁸, which is easier for me to remember than the set of digits:

Math.floor(Math.random()*8**8).toString(16);

Fred

# August 21, 2020

This is awesome!

RainCode

# April 6, 2021

Is it possible to edit this so the 7 colors of the rainbow are shown at the same time(7 blocks on the screen) but generated in different positions on the screen every time the code is run?

Rayan Jaberi

# July 8, 2021

ٌwhy you used 16777215 in your code?

jeffreyram

Permalink to comment# September 3, 2021

16777215 is the decimal number of the highest hexadecimal in colors:

rgb(255, 255, 255) in hexadecimal is “FFFFFF” which is 16777215 when converted to decimal number.

Basically they’re choosing a random number between 000000-FFFFFF

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