How to store and retrieve objects in local storage using JavaScript

published: 06 Sep 2022

2 min read

Storing and retrieving objects in local storage using JavaScript

The HTML web storage API offers a way to store a large amount of data (5MB+) in a user's browser without affecting the website performance.

By default, both web storage objects - localStorage and sessionStorage - allows us to store only string key-value pairs:

const user = { name: 'Alex', job: 'Software Engineer' };

localStorage.setItem('user', user);

console.log(localStorage.getItem('user')); // [object Object]

If you want to store an entire JavaScript object, you first need to serialize it into a string by using the JSON.stringify() method:

const user = { name: 'Alex', job: 'Software Engineer' };

localStorage.setItem('user', JSON.stringify(user));

console.log(localStorage.getItem('user')); 
// {'name':'Alex','job':'Software Engineer'}

To retrieve the JavaScript object from localStorage, use the getItem() method. You still need to use the JSON.parse() method to parse the JSON string back to an object:

// Retrieve the JSON string
const userStr = localStorage.getItem('user');

// Parse JSON string to object
const userObj = JSON.parse(userStr);

// Print object attributes
console.log(userObj.name);  // Alex
console.log(userObj.job);    // Software Engineer

To learn more about localStorage and sessionStorage objects, take a look at this article.

How to store and retrieve objects in local storage using JavaScript | Coding Tips And Tricks

Are we missing something?  Help us improve this article. Reach out to us.

Are you looking for other code tips?

Check out what's on in the category: javascript, programming
Check out what's on in the tag: javascript, programming