HTML Guides for media queries

Media types describe the general category of a device for which a stylesheet is intended. The most commonly used values are screen (for computer screens, tablets, and phones), print (for print preview and printed pages), and all (the default, for all devices).

Understanding Deprecated Media Types

CSS 2.1 and Media Queries 3 defined several additional media types: tty, tv, projection, handheld, braille, embossed, and aural. All of these were deprecated in the Media Queries 4 specification. The projection type was originally intended for projected presentations (such as slideshows), but modern browsers never meaningfully distinguished between screen and projection rendering contexts.

Why This Is a Problem

• Standards compliance: Using deprecated media types produces validator warnings and means your code doesn’t conform to current web standards.
• No practical effect: Modern browsers treat unrecognized or deprecated media types as not matching, which means a stylesheet targeted only at projection would never be applied. When combined with screen in a comma-separated list (e.g., screen,projection), the projection portion is simply ignored — it adds clutter without benefit.
• Maintainability: Keeping deprecated values in your markup can confuse other developers and suggest that the code targets a platform that no longer exists in the spec.

How to Fix It

1. Remove the deprecated media type from the media attribute, keeping only valid types like screen, print, speech, or all.
2. Remove the media attribute entirely if the remaining value is all or if you only need screen (since screen is the most common rendering context and stylesheets without a media attribute default to all).
3. Use modern media features instead of deprecated media types if you need to target specific device capabilities (e.g., (hover: none), (pointer: coarse), (display-mode: fullscreen)).

Examples

❌ Incorrect: Using the deprecated projection media type

<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" media="screen,projection">

This triggers the validation warning because projection has been deprecated.

✅ Correct: Using only the screen media type

<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" media="screen">

✅ Correct: Removing the media attribute entirely

If you want the stylesheet to apply to all media types (the default behavior), simply omit the attribute:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">

✅ Correct: Combining valid media types

If you need your stylesheet to apply to both screen and print contexts:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" media="screen,print">

❌ Other deprecated media types to avoid

All of the following are deprecated and will produce similar warnings:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="a.css" media="handheld">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="b.css" media="tv">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="c.css" media="braille">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="d.css" media="embossed">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="e.css" media="tty">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="f.css" media="aural">

Replace these with screen, print, speech, all, or use specific media features to target the device characteristics you need.

The device-width and device-height media features (including their min- and max- prefixed versions) were originally designed to query the physical dimensions of a device’s screen. In practice, this caused significant problems. On high-DPI (Retina) displays, max-device-width could report unexpected values depending on the device pixel ratio. When users resized their browser window, these features didn’t respond because the physical screen size never changed. And with browser zoom, the layout could break because the query still referenced the fixed device dimensions rather than the actual available space.

The Media Queries Level 4 specification formally deprecated these features. Modern browsers still support them for backward compatibility, but they should not be used in new code. The W3C validator raises this warning to encourage migration to the current standard.

The viewport-based equivalents — width, min-width, and max-width — respond to the browser’s layout viewport. This means they correctly adapt when the user resizes the window, zooms the page, or views the page in a split-screen mode. They also behave consistently across devices regardless of pixel density.

If your existing code uses max-device-width or min-device-width, the fix is straightforward: drop the word device from the feature name. For example, max-device-width: 768px becomes max-width: 768px. If you were relying on device dimensions to detect high-DPI screens, use the resolution media feature instead (e.g., min-resolution: 2dppx), which is the standards-compliant replacement for vendor-prefixed features like -webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio.

When choosing breakpoint values, prefer content-driven breakpoints — values where your layout actually needs to adapt — rather than targeting specific device widths. This produces more resilient designs that work well on any screen size.

Examples

Deprecated usage triggering the warning

The max-device-width media feature in the <style> block triggers the validator warning:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <title>Deprecated Media Feature</title>
  <style>
    /* Deprecated: queries the physical device screen */
    @media only screen and (max-device-width: 480px) {
      body {
        background: pink;
      }
    }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <p>This page uses a deprecated media feature.</p>
</body>
</html>

The same warning appears if the deprecated feature is used in a <link> element’s media attribute:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="mobile.css" media="(max-device-width: 480px)">

Fixed example using viewport-based queries

Replace max-device-width with max-width to query the viewport instead:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <title>Viewport-Based Media Query</title>
  <style>
    /* Correct: responds to the viewport width */
    @media (max-width: 480px) {
      body {
        background: pink;
      }
    }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <p>This page uses a modern media feature.</p>
</body>
</html>

And for the <link> element:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="mobile.css" media="(max-width: 480px)">

Replacing device pixel ratio queries

If you were using device-width features alongside -webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio to target high-DPI screens, switch to the standard resolution feature:

<style>
  /* Deprecated approach */
  @media (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) {
    .logo {
      background-image: url("logo@2x.png");
    }
  }

  /* Standards-compliant replacement */
  @media (min-resolution: 2dppx) {
    .logo {
      background-image: url("logo@2x.png");
    }
  }
</style>

Quick reference of replacements

The min-device-width and max-device-width media features were originally designed to query the physical screen dimensions of a device. However, these features have been deprecated in Media Queries Level 4 and Level 5 because they are unreliable in modern browsing contexts. The physical screen size is a poor proxy for the actual available layout space — it doesn’t account for browser chrome, split-screen modes, zoom levels, or the fact that many modern devices report abstract pixel values that don’t correspond to physical hardware pixels in a straightforward way.

The viewport-based alternatives — min-width and max-width — respond to the layout viewport, which is the actual space your content is rendered into. This makes them far more useful for responsive design. When a user zooms in, the layout viewport shrinks, and min-width/max-width queries respond accordingly. With min-device-width, zooming has no effect on the query result, which can lead to layouts that don’t adapt when they should.

Beyond practical concerns, using deprecated features means your CSS may behave inconsistently across browsers in the future, as support could be removed entirely. Validators flag this to encourage migration to the modern, standards-compliant approach.

How to fix it

The fix is a straightforward replacement:

• min-device-width → min-width
• max-device-width → max-width

If your original query also included the screen keyword solely to pair with device-width targeting, you can safely drop it — min-width and max-width apply across all media types and the screen qualifier is rarely necessary in modern CSS.

If you were using min-device-width to detect high-density or Retina displays (a common pattern in older code), the correct modern approach is to use the resolution media feature instead, such as min-resolution: 2dppx.

Examples

Deprecated usage (triggers warning)

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <title>Deprecated media feature</title>
  <style>
    @media screen and (min-device-width: 768px) {
      .sidebar { display: block; }
    }

    @media screen and (max-device-width: 480px) {
      .sidebar { display: none; }
    }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <aside class="sidebar">Sidebar content</aside>
</body>
</html>

Both min-device-width and max-device-width are deprecated and will produce validation warnings.

Fixed example using viewport-based queries

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <title>Viewport-based media queries</title>
  <style>
    @media (min-width: 768px) {
      .sidebar { display: block; }
    }

    @media (max-width: 480px) {
      .sidebar { display: none; }
    }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <aside class="sidebar">Sidebar content</aside>
</body>
</html>

Replacing device-width with resolution for pixel density

Older code sometimes used min-device-width in combination with -webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio to target high-density screens. The modern equivalent uses the resolution media feature:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <title>Resolution media query</title>
  <style>
    /* Deprecated approach */
    /*
    @media screen and (min-device-width: 768px) and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) {
      .hero { background-image: url("hero@2x.jpg"); }
    }
    */

    /* Modern approach */
    @media (min-width: 768px) and (min-resolution: 2dppx) {
      .hero { background-image: url("hero@2x.jpg"); }
    }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <div class="hero">Hero section</div>
</body>
</html>

The min-resolution: 2dppx query cleanly replaces vendor-prefixed pixel ratio queries and works alongside the standard min-width viewport query.