Inherit, Initial and Unset Values for CSS Properties

All CSS properties have 3 basic values in common: inherit, initial and unset. Inherit and initial have been around for a long time, but unset is a new addition. What the values will do can at times get confusing, so here’s a breakdown:

• inherit: Get the property from the parent element.
• initial: The default value for the property (the browser default).
• unset: Acts as either inherit or initial. It’ll act as inherit if the parent has a value that matches, or else it will act as initial.

Here’s an example to make is clear. Here’s our markup:

<div class="wrapper">
  <p class="one">Snake<p>
  <p class="two">Lizard<p>
  <p class="three">Alligator</p>
  <p>Komodo Dragon</p>
</div>

And here’s our CSS:

.wrapper { color: orange; }

.wrapper p { color: purple; }

p.one { color: inherit; }

p.two { color: initial; }

p.three { color: unset; }

• Snake is orange, it inherits from the wrapper div.
• Lizard is black, it takes the initial browser default value.
• Alligator is orange, in this case unset acts as inherit because there is a parent with a matching value.
• Komodo Dragon is purple, the only paragraph that takes its value from the .wrapper p selector.

👉 A neat trick with unset is when combined with the all shorthand, which automatically affects all properties of a selector. The following unsets every properties of the selected p elements:

article p {
  all: unset;
}