How Can I Recursively Select All Child Elements in CSS?

CSS: Selecting Child Elements Recursively

When dealing with complex HTML structures, it becomes necessary to select all child elements to apply styles consistently. However, the conventional approach using immediate child selectors only affects the direct descendants.

Recursive Child Element Selection in CSS

To select all child elements recursively, leverage the * (whitespace) selector. It matches every element that is inside the designated parent element, regardless of its nesting depth.

div.dropdown * {
  color: red;
}

This simple syntax effectively assigns styles to all descendants of div.dropdown, including children, grandchildren, and so on. The asterisk (*) matches any element, and the whitespace acts as a descendant selector.

Official Specification

For further clarification, refer to the CSS 2.1 specification:

Chapter 5.5: Descendant Selectors

The x y selector matches every element y that is inside x, however deeply nested it may be - children, grandchildren and so on.

The asterisk * matches any element.

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