Box Shadow Color

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Basic usage

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Setting the box shadow color

Use the shadow-{color} utilities to change the color of an existing box shadow. By default colored shadows have an opacity of 100%, but you can adjust this using the opacity modifier.

<button class="bg-cyan-500 shadow-lg shadow-cyan-500/50 ...">Subscribe</button>
<button class="bg-blue-500 shadow-lg shadow-blue-500/50 ...">Subscribe</button>
<button class="bg-indigo-500 shadow-lg shadow-indigo-500/50 ...">Subscribe</button>

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Using shadows on colored backgrounds

When using shadows on a colored background, colored shadows can often look more natural than the default black-based shadows, which tend to appear gray and washed-out.

<!-- Default shadow-->
<button class="shadow-lg">Subscribe</button>

<!-- Colored shadow-->
<button class="shadow-lg shadow-indigo-500/40 ...">Subscribe</button>

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Applying conditionally

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Hover, focus, and other states

Tailwind lets you conditionally apply utility classes in different states using variant modifiers. For example, use hover:shadow-indigo-500/40 to only apply the shadow-indigo-500/40 utility on hover.

<button class="shadow shadow-blue-500/40 hover:shadow-indigo-500/40">
  <!-- ... -->
</button>

For a complete list of all available state modifiers, check out the Hover, Focus, & Other States documentation.

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Breakpoints and media queries

You can also use variant modifiers to target media queries like responsive breakpoints, dark mode, prefers-reduced-motion, and more. For example, use md:shadow-indigo-500/40 to apply the shadow-indigo-500/40 utility at only medium screen sizes and above.

<button class="shadow shadow-blue-500/40 md:shadow-indigo-500/40">
  <!-- ... -->
</button>

To learn more, check out the documentation on Responsive Design, Dark Mode and other media query modifiers.

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Preserving shadow color when changing the shadow size

Note that if you change the box shadow size at a different breakpoint, or on another state like hover, it will override any existing shadow colors.

<!-- This shadow will NOT be red at medium screens and above -->
<div class="shadow-lg shadow-red-500 md:shadow-xl"></div>

To preserve the shadow color in these states, it needs to be respecified:

<!-- This shadow WILL be red at medium screens and above -->
<div class="shadow-lg shadow-red-500 md:shadow-xl md:shadow-red-500"></div>

It’s necessary for Tailwind to work this way, as otherwise there would be no way to switch back to the default shadow.

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Using custom values

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Customizing your theme

By default, Tailwind makes the entire default color palette available as box shadow colors. You can customize your color palette by editing theme.colors or theme.extend.colors in your tailwind.config.js file.

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      colors: {
        'regal-blue': '#243c5a',
      },
    }
  }
}

Alternatively, you can customize just your box shadow colors by editing theme.boxShadowColor or theme.extend.boxShadowColor in your tailwind.config.js file.

Learn more about customizing the default theme in the theme customization documentation.

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Arbitrary values

If you need to use a one-off box-shadow value that doesn’t make sense to include in your theme, use square brackets to generate a property on the fly using any arbitrary value.

<button class="shadow-[#50d71e]">
  <!-- ... -->
</button>

Learn more about arbitrary value support in the arbitrary values documentation.