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How to remove white space from the beginning or end of a string with vanilla JS

Today, we’re going to look at a few different ways to remove whitespace from the start or end of a string with vanilla JavaScript.

Let’s dig in.

The String.trim() method

You can call the trim() method on your string to remove whitespace from the beginning and end of it. It returns a new string.

var hello = '     Hello there!    ';

// returns "Hello there!"
hello.trim();

The String.trim() method works in all modern browsers, and back to IE9.

The String.trimStart() method

The trimStart() method works just like trim(), but only removes whitespace from the start of the string.

// returns "Hello there!    "
hello.trimStart();

The String.trimStart() method works in all modern browsers, but has no IE support. You can push support back to IE9 with a polyfill.

The String.trimEnd() method

The trimEnd() method work just like trimStart(), but removes whitespace from the end of the string instead of the beginning.

// returns "     Hello there!"
hello.trimEnd();

The String.trimEnd() method works in all modern browsers, but has no IE support. You can push support back to IE9 with a polyfill.