---
title: Window.top
slug: Web/API/Window/top
tags:
  - API
  - HTML DOM
  - Property
  - Reference
  - Window
translation_of: Web/API/Window/top
---
<div>{{APIRef}}</div>

<p>Returns a reference to the topmost window in the window hierarchy.</p>

<h2 id="Syntax">Syntax</h2>

<pre class="syntaxbox">var <var>topWindow</var> = window.top;
</pre>

<h2 id="Notes">Notes</h2>

<p>Where the {{domxref("window.parent")}} property returns the immediate parent of the current window, <code>window.top</code> returns the topmost window in the hierarchy of window objects.</p>

<p>This property is especially useful when you are dealing with a window that is in a subframe of a parent or parents, and you want to get to the top-level frameset.</p>

<h2 id="Specifications">Specifications</h2>

<table class="standard-table">
 <thead>
  <tr>
   <th scope="col">Specification</th>
   <th scope="col">Status</th>
   <th scope="col">Comment</th>
  </tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('HTML WHATWG', 'browsers.html#dom-top', 'window.top')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('HTML WHATWG')}}</td>
   <td> </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('HTML5 W3C', 'browsers.html#dom-top', 'window.top')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('HTML5 W3C')}}</td>
   <td>Initial definition</td>
  </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

<h2 id="Browser_compatibility">Browser compatibility</h2>



<p>{{Compat("api.Window.top")}}</p>