---
name: Inline autocomplete
slug: inline-autocomplete
category: pattern
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-25T00:00:00.000Z
definition: Completing the reader's text inside the field itself, with the
  guessed remainder selected so the next keystroke replaces it.
aliases:
  - name: autocomplete inline
    source: aria-apg
  - name: inline completion
    source: community
  - name: ghost text
    source: community
  - name: type-ahead completion
    source: community
  - name: URL bar autofill
    source: community
tags:
  - ai
  - search
  - text-editing
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - input-purpose
    - combobox
    - mention-autocomplete
    - typeahead
    - autofill
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso: []
implementations:
  - system: aria-apg
    name: Editable Combobox With Both List and Inline Autocomplete
    url: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/combobox/examples/combobox-autocomplete-both/
sources:
  - title: "ARIA APG: Combobox pattern"
    url: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/combobox/
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: the field finishes your word inside the field
---

Inline autocomplete puts the guess where the typing is. The field shows the whole
candidate, the part the reader typed followed by the part the field supplied, and the
supplied part is selected. That selection is the entire mechanism, not decoration. Because
the remainder is a selected range, the next character typed replaces it rather than landing
after it, so a reader who ignores the guess never has to delete it; and because it is still
a range, one press of the right arrow or End collapses the selection and accepts the
completion as text. Typing forward or typing over are the same gesture, which is why the
pattern survives fast typists at all.

It is old, and the browser address bar is where most people meet it. The ARIA authoring
practices treat it as a property of a combobox rather than a pattern of its own, naming the
inline half "list with inline completion" when a popup list is showing at the same time,
and requiring that the completion be a selected range so assistive technology reports the
field's value honestly. The failure mode it exists to avoid is the field that inserts the
remainder as ordinary text: the reader keeps typing, the letters go after the guess, and
the value becomes a collision of two words that neither party asked for.

There is a name collision worth being precise about, because it has arrived recently and
loudly. This entry claims the classic reading: a completion drawn from a known finite set
(your contacts, your history, a list of countries), inserted into the field, selected. It
is not the AI suggestion that shows a whole predicted phrase in grey after the cursor and
waits for Tab. That thing is also called ghost text, and it differs in three ways that
matter to the reader: it is generated rather than looked up, so it can be wrong in ways a
list cannot; it is unselected inert text, so a keystroke does not overwrite it; and it is
accepted with Tab rather than by continuing to type. Both are worth having. Calling them
the same word makes it impossible to say which one a field is doing, so this site keeps
"inline autocomplete" for the selected-remainder sense.

The near neighbours are worth keeping apart too. [Typeahead](/typeahead) is the field that
searches while you type, showing results elsewhere, and needs no completion in the field at
all. [Mention autocomplete](/mention-autocomplete) triggers on a character inside prose and
inserts a token rather than letters. Inline autocomplete is the narrow case where the guess
lives in the value, and the selection is the promise that it is only a guess.