---
name: Range select
slug: range-select
category: interaction
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: Choosing a contiguous run of items by marking one end and holding
  Shift while marking the other, selecting everything between them.
aliases:
  - name: shift-click
    source: community
  - name: shift select
    source: community
  - name: contiguous selection
    source: community
  - name: extend selection
    source: community
  - name: range selection
    source: merged-candidate
  - name: anchor selection
    source: merged-candidate
tags:
  - keyboard
  - selection
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - brushing
    - lasso-selection
    - bulk-actions
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso:
    - selection-color
    - multi-select
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: "ARIA APG: Developing a keyboard interface"
    url: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/practices/keyboard-interface/
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: selecting everything between two items at once
---

Selecting forty rows one click at a time is the kind of work interfaces are supposed to
absorb. Range select absorbs it with two clicks: the first sets an anchor, the second
says how far, and everything between the two ends up selected. It came out of desktop
file managers, arrived on the web with Gmail in 2004, and is now expected in every list
of things: mail, files, tracks, layers, spreadsheet cells, and any table with a checkbox
column.

The anchor is the part implementations get wrong. A range is defined by two ends, so the
list has to remember which item was the last plain click and keep it while shifted clicks
move only the other end. Shift clicking again from the same anchor should redraw the
range rather than add a second one, so shrinking a range is just clicking nearer the
anchor. The anchor moves only on an unmodified click, or on the first item of a
[modifier key](/modifier-key) pick, and it survives scrolling and sorting. Get that wrong
and the reader experiences it as a list that forgets where they started.

Order is the other trap. The range is defined over the list as currently rendered, not
over the underlying data, so a sort or a filter applied while a range is selected leaves a
selection that is no longer contiguous. Most applications keep the items and drop the
claim of contiguity, which is honest. Collapsed groups raise the same question in reverse:
a range that spans a collapsed section usually should include the rows hidden inside it,
and should say so, because a count that jumps from nine to thirty on expand reads as a
bug.

Keyboard and screen reader users need the same reach, and the APG spells it out:
`Shift + Down` extends the selection by one, `Shift + Home` and `Shift + End` extend to
the ends, and `Control + A` selects everything. The visible state has to be
`aria-selected` on each item, with the header checkbox reporting `aria-checked="mixed"`
when only some rows are in, since a half selected list is a real third state rather than
an unchecked one. Touch has no Shift at all, which is why phones answer with a selection
mode: one long press enters it, and taps extend from there.