Detect click outside element

Question

There is the solution I used, which is based on Linus Borg answer and works fine with vue.js 2.0.

Vue.directive('click-outside', {
  bind: function (el, binding, vnode) {
    el.clickOutsideEvent = function (event) {
      // here I check that click was outside the el and his children
      if (!(el == event.target || el.contains(event.target))) {
        // and if it did, call method provided in attribute value
        vnode.context[binding.expression](event);
      }
    };
    document.body.addEventListener('click', el.clickOutsideEvent)
  },
  unbind: function (el) {
    document.body.removeEventListener('click', el.clickOutsideEvent)
  },
});

You bind to it using v-click-outside:

<div v-click-outside="doStuff">

Here's a small demo

You can find some more info about custom directives and what el, binding, vnode means in https://vuejs.org/v2/guide/custom-directive.html#Directive-Hook-Arguments

Keep in attention that this solution only works with Vue 1.

Can be solved nicely by setting up a custom directive once:

Vue.directive('click-outside', {
  bind () {
      this.event = event => this.vm.$emit(this.expression, event)
      this.el.addEventListener('click', this.stopProp)
      document.body.addEventListener('click', this.event)
  },   
  unbind() {
    this.el.removeEventListener('click', this.stopProp)
    document.body.removeEventListener('click', this.event)
  },

  stopProp(event) { event.stopPropagation() }
})

Usage:

<div v-click-outside="nameOfCustomEventToCall">
  Some content
</div>

In the component:

events: {
  nameOfCustomEventToCall: function (event) {
    // do something - probably hide the dropdown menu / modal etc.
  }
}

Working Demo on JSFiddle with additional info about caveats:

https://jsfiddle.net/Linusborg/yzm8t8jq/

Add tabindex attribute to your component so that it can be focused and do the following:

<template>
    <div
        @focus="handleFocus"
        @focusout="handleFocusOut"
        tabindex="0"
    >
      SOME CONTENT HERE
    </div>
</template>

<script>
export default {    
    methods: {
        handleFocus() {
            // do something here
        },
        handleFocusOut() {
            // do something here
        }
    }
}
</script>

There are two packages available in the community for this task (both are maintained):

• https://github.com/simplesmiler/vue-clickaway
• https://github.com/ndelvalle/v-click-outside

For Vue 3:

This answer is based on MadisonTrash's great answer above but updated to use new Vue 3 syntax.

Vue 3 now uses beforeMount instead of bind, and unmounted instead of unbind (src).

const clickOutside = {
  beforeMount: (el, binding) => {
    el.clickOutsideEvent = event => {
      // here I check that click was outside the el and his children
      if (!(el == event.target || el.contains(event.target))) {
        // and if it did, call method provided in attribute value
        binding.value();
      }
    };
    document.addEventListener("click", el.clickOutsideEvent);
  },
  unmounted: el => {
    document.removeEventListener("click", el.clickOutsideEvent);
  },
};

createApp(App)
  .directive("click-outside", clickOutside)
  .mount("#app");

I did it a slightly different way using a function within created().

  created() {
      window.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
        if (!this.$el.contains(e.target)){
          this.showMobileNav = false
        }
      })
  },

This way, if someone clicks outside of the element, then in my case, the mobile nav is hidden.