[css] What is the difference between "screen" and "only screen" in media queries?

What is the difference between screen and only screen in media queries?

<link media="screen and (max-device-width: 480px)" rel="stylesheet" href="m.css" />
<link media="only screen and (max-device-width: 480px)" rel="stylesheet" href="m.css" />

Why are we required to use only screen? Does screen not itself provide enough information to be rendered only for screen?

I've seen many responsive websites using any of these three different ways:

@media screen and (max-width:632px)

@media (max-width:632px)

@media only screen and (max-width:632px)

The following is from Adobe docs.

The media queries specification also provides the keyword only, which is intended to hide media queries from older browsers. Like not, the keyword must come at the beginning of the declaration. For example:

media="only screen and (min-width: 401px) and (max-width: 600px)"

Browsers that don't recognize media queries expect a comma-separated list of media types, and the specification says they should truncate each value immediately before the first nonalphanumeric character that isn't a hyphen. So, an old browser should interpret the preceding example as this:

media="only"

Because there is no such media type as only, the stylesheet is ignored. Similarly, an old browser should interpret

media="screen and (min-width: 401px) and (max-width: 600px)"

as

media="screen"

In other words, it should apply the style rules to all screen devices, even though it doesn't know what the media queries mean.

Unfortunately, IE 6–8 failed to implement the specification correctly.

Instead of applying the styles to all screen devices, it ignores the style sheet altogether.

In spite of this behavior, it's still recommended to prefix media queries with only if you want to hide the styles from other, less common browsers.

So, using

media="only screen and (min-width: 401px)"

and

media="screen and (min-width: 401px)"

will have the same effect in IE6-8: both will prevent those styles from being used. They will, however, still be downloaded.

Also, in browsers that support CSS3 media queries, both versions will load the styles if the viewport width is larger than 401px and the media type is screen.

I'm not entirely sure which browsers that don't support CSS3 media queries would need the only version

media="only screen and (min-width: 401px)" 

as opposed to

media="screen and (min-width: 401px)"

to make sure it is not interpreted as

media="screen"

It would be a good test for someone with access to a device lab.

@media screen and (max-width:480px) { … } 

screen here is to set the screen size of the media query. E.g the maximum width of the display area is 480px. So it is specifying the screen as opposed to the other available media types.

@media only screen and (max-width: 480px;) { … } 

only screen here is used to prevent older browsers that do not support media queries with media features from applying the specified styles.

To style for many smartphones with smaller screens, you could write:

@media screen and (max-width:480px) { … } 

To block older browsers from seeing an iPhone or Android phone style sheet, you could write:

@media only screen and (max-width: 480px;) { … } 

Read this article for more http://webdesign.about.com/od/css3/a/css3-media-queries.htm

The answer by @hybrid is quite informative, except it doesn't explain the purpose as mentioned by @ashitaka "What if you use the Mobile First approach? So, we have the mobile CSS first and then use min-width to target larger sites. We shouldn't use the only keyword in that context, right? "

Want to add in here that the purpose is simply to prevent non supporting browsers to use that Other device style as if it starts from "screen" without it will take it for a screen whereas if it starts from "only" style will be ignored.

Answering to ashitaka consider this example

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" 
  href="android.css" media="only screen and (max-width: 480px)" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" 
  href="desktop.css" media="screen and (min-width: 481px)" />

If we don't use "only" it will still work as desktop-style will also be used striking android styles but with unnecessary overhead. In this case, IF a browser is non-supporting it will fallback to the second Style-sheet ignoring the first.

Let's break down your examples one by one.

@media (max-width:632px)

This one is saying for a window with a max-width of 632px that you want to apply these styles. At that size you would be talking about anything smaller than a desktop screen in most cases.

@media screen and (max-width:632px)

This one is saying for a device with a screen and a window with max-width of 632px apply the style. This is almost identical to the above except you are specifying screen as opposed to the other available media types the most common other one being print.

@media only screen and (max-width:632px)

Here is a quote straight from W3C to explain this one.

The keyword ‘only’ can also be used to hide style sheets from older user agents. User agents must process media queries starting with ‘only’ as if the ‘only’ keyword was not present.

As there is no such media type as "only", the style sheet should be ignored by older browsers.

Here's the link to that quote that is shown in example 9 on that page.

Hopefully this sheds some light on media queries.

EDIT:

Be sure to check out @hybrids excellent answer on how the only keyword is really handled.