Error: message
Baseline
Widely available
This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.
The message data property of an Error instance is a human-readable description of the error.
Value
A string corresponding to the value passed to the Error() constructor as the first argument.
Property attributes of Error: message | |
|---|---|
| Writable | yes |
| Enumerable | no |
| Configurable | yes |
Description
This property contains a brief description of the error if one is available or has been set. The message property combined with the name property is used by the Error.prototype.toString() method to create a string representation of the Error.
By default, the message property is an empty string, but this behavior can be overridden for an instance by specifying a message as the first argument to the Error constructor.
Examples
Throwing a custom error
const e = new Error("Could not parse input");
// e.message is 'Could not parse input'
throw e;
Specifications
| Specification |
|---|
| ECMAScript® 2026 Language Specification # sec-error.prototype.message |
Browser compatibility
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