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Version: 5.x

Drawer Navigator

Component that renders a navigation drawer which can be opened and closed via gestures.

To use this navigator, ensure that you have @react-navigation/native and its dependencies (follow this guide), then install @react-navigation/drawer:

npm install @react-navigation/drawer@^5.x

API Definition

To use this drawer navigator, import it from @react-navigation/drawer:

import { createDrawerNavigator } from '@react-navigation/drawer';

const Drawer = createDrawerNavigator();

function MyDrawer() {
return (
<Drawer.Navigator>
<Drawer.Screen name="Feed" component={Feed} />
<Drawer.Screen name="Article" component={Article} />
</Drawer.Navigator>
);
}

For a complete usage guide please visit Drawer Navigation.

Props

The Drawer.Navigator component accepts following props:

initialRouteName

The name of the route to render on first load of the navigator.

screenOptions

Default options to use for the screens in the navigator.

backBehavior

How the going back behaves in the navigator, e.g. when goBack is called or device back button is pressed.

  • initialRoute to return to initial tab
  • order to return to previous tab (in the order they are shown in the tab bar)
  • history to return to last visited tab
  • none to not handle back button

openByDefault

Whether the drawer should stay open by default. When this is true, the drawer will be open from the initial render. It can be closed normally using gestures or programmatically. However, when going back, drawer will re-open if it was closed. This essentially reverses the behavior of the drawer where the closed state is the default state.

drawerPosition

Options are left or right. Default is left position.

drawerType

Type of the drawer. It determines how the drawer looks and animates.

  • front: Traditional drawer which covers the screen with a overlay behind it.
  • back: The drawer is revealed behind the screen on swipe.
  • slide: Both the screen and the drawer slide on swipe to reveal the drawer.
  • permanent: A permanent drawer is shown as a sidebar. Useful for having always visible drawer on larger screens.

You can conditionally specify the drawerType to show a permanent drawer on bigger screens and a traditional drawer drawer on small screens:

import { useWindowDimensions } from 'react-native';
import { createDrawerNavigator } from '@react-navigation/drawer';

const Drawer = createDrawerNavigator();

function MyDrawer() {
const dimensions = useWindowDimensions();

return (
<Drawer.Navigator
drawerType={dimensions.width >= 768 ? 'permanent' : 'front'}
>
{/* Screens */}
</Drawer.Navigator>
);
}

You can also specify other props such as drawerStyle based on screen size to customize the behavior. For example, you can combine it with openByDefault to achieve a master-detail layout:

import { useWindowDimensions } from 'react-native';
import { createDrawerNavigator } from '@react-navigation/drawer';

const Drawer = createDrawerNavigator();

function MyDrawer() {
const dimensions = useWindowDimensions();

const isLargeScreen = dimensions.width >= 768;

return (
<Drawer.Navigator
openByDefault
drawerType={isLargeScreen ? 'permanent' : 'back'}
drawerStyle={isLargeScreen ? null : { width: '100%' }}
overlayColor="transparent"
>
{/* Screens */}
</Drawer.Navigator>
);
}

edgeWidth

Allows for defining how far from the edge of the content view the swipe gesture should activate.

This is not supported on Web.

hideStatusBar

When set to true Drawer component will hide the OS status bar whenever the drawer is pulled or when it's in an "open" state.

statusBarAnimation

Animation of the statusbar when hiding it. use in combination with hideStatusBar.

Possible values:

  • slide (Default)
  • fade
  • none

This is supported on iOS only.

keyboardDismissMode

Whether the keyboard should be dismissed when the swipe gesture begins. Defaults to 'on-drag'. Set to 'none' to disable keyboard handling.

minSwipeDistance

Minimum swipe distance threshold that should activate opening the drawer.

overlayColor

Color overlay to be displayed on top of the content view when drawer gets open. The opacity is animated from 0 to 1 when the drawer opens.

lazy

detachInactiveScreens

Boolean used to indicate whether inactive screens should be detached from the view hierarchy to save memory. Make sure to call enableScreens from react-native-screens to make it work. Defaults to true.

Whether the screens should render the first time they are accessed. Defaults to true. Set it to false if you want to render all screens on initial render.

gestureHandlerProps

Props to pass to the underlying pan gesture handler.

This is not supported on Web.

sceneContainerStyle

Style object for the component wrapping the screen content.

drawerStyle

Style object for the drawer component. You can pass a custom background color for a drawer or a custom width here.

<Drawer.Navigator
drawerStyle={{
backgroundColor: '#c6cbef',
width: 240,
}}
>
{/* screens */}
</Drawer.Navigator>

drawerContent

Function that returns React element to render as the content of the drawer, for example, navigation items

The content component receives following props by default:

  • state - The navigation state of the navigator.
  • navigation - The navigation object for the navigator.
  • descriptors - An descriptor object containing options for the drawer screens. The options can be accessed at descriptors[route.key].options.
  • progress - Reanimated Node that represents the animated position of the drawer (0 is closed; 1 is open).
Providing a custom drawerContent

The default component for the drawer is scrollable and only contains links for the routes in the RouteConfig. You can easily override the default component to add a header, footer, or other content to the drawer. The default content component is exported as DrawerContent. It renders a DrawerItemList component inside a ScrollView.

By default the drawer is scrollable and supports devices with notches. If you customize the content, you can use DrawerContentScrollView to handle this automatically:

import {
DrawerContentScrollView,
DrawerItemList,
} from '@react-navigation/drawer';

function CustomDrawerContent(props) {
return (
<DrawerContentScrollView {...props}>
<DrawerItemList {...props} />
</DrawerContentScrollView>
);
}

To add additional items in the drawer, you can use the DrawerItem component:

function CustomDrawerContent(props) {
return (
<DrawerContentScrollView {...props}>
<DrawerItemList {...props} />
<DrawerItem
label="Help"
onPress={() => Linking.openURL('https://mywebsite.com/help')}
/>
</DrawerContentScrollView>
);
}

The DrawerItem component accepts the following props:

  • label (required): The label text of the item. Can be string, or a function returning a react element. e.g. ({ focused, color }) => <Text style={{ color }}>{focused ? 'Focused text' : 'Unfocused text'}</Text>.
  • icon: Icon to display for the item. Accepts a function returning a react element. e.g. ({ focused, color, size }) => <Icon color={color} size={size} name={focused ? 'heart' : 'heart-outline'} />.
  • focused: Boolean indicating whether to highlight the drawer item as active.
  • onPress (required): Function to execute on press.
  • activeTintColor: Color for the icon and label when the item is active.
  • inactiveTintColor: Color for the icon and label when the item is inactive.
  • activeBackgroundColor: Background color for item when it's active.
  • inactiveBackgroundColor: Background color for item when it's inactive.
  • labelStyle: Style object for the label Text.
  • style: Style object for the wrapper View.

The progress node can be used to do interesting animations in your drawerContent, such as parallax motion of the drawer contents:

function CustomDrawerContent({ progress, ...rest }) {
const translateX = Animated.interpolate(progress, {
inputRange: [0, 1],
outputRange: [-100, 0],
});

return (
<Animated.View style={{ transform: [{ translateX }] }}>
{/* ... drawer contents */}
</Animated.View>
);
}

Note that you cannot use the useNavigation hook inside the drawerContent since useNavigation is only available inside screens. You get a navigation prop for your drawerContent which you can use instead:

function CustomDrawerContent({ navigation }) {
return (
<Button
title="Go somewhere"
onPress={() => {
// Navigate using the `navigation` prop that you received
navigation.navigate('SomeScreen');
}}
/>
);
}

To use the custom component, we need to pass it in the drawerContent prop:

<Drawer.Navigator drawerContent={(props) => <CustomDrawerContent {...props} />}>
{/* screens */}
</Drawer.Navigator>

drawerContentOptions

An object containing the props for the drawer content component. See below for more details.

activeTintColor

Color for the icon and label in the active item in the drawer.

activeBackgroundColor

Background color for the active item in the drawer.

inactiveTintColor

Color for the icon and label in the inactive items in the drawer.

inactiveBackgroundColor

Background color for the inactive items in the drawer.

itemStyle

Style object for the single item, which can contain an icon and/or a label.

labelStyle

Style object to apply to the Text style inside content section which renders a label.

contentContainerStyle

Style object for the content section inside the ScrollView.

style

Style object for the wrapper view.

Example:

<Drawer.Navigator
drawerContentOptions={{
activeTintColor: '#e91e63',
itemStyle: { marginVertical: 30 },
}}
>
{/* screens */}
</Drawer.Navigator>

Options

The following options can be used to configure the screens in the navigator:

title

Generic title that can be used as a fallback for headerTitle and drawerLabel

drawerLabel

String or a function that given { focused: boolean, color: string } returns a React.Node, to display in drawer sidebar. When undefined, scene title is used

drawerIcon

Function, that given { focused: boolean, color: string, size: number } returns a React.Node, to display in drawer sidebar

swipeEnabled

Whether you can use swipe gestures to open or close the drawer. Defaults to true.

Swipe gesture is not supported on Web.

gestureEnabled

Whether you can use gestures to open or close the drawer. Setting this to false disables swipe gestures as well as tap on overlay to close. See swipeEnabled to disable only the swipe gesture.

Custom header to use instead of the default header.

This accepts a function that returns a React Element to display as a header. The function receives an object containing the following properties as the argument:

  • layout - Dimensions of the screen
  • scene - This contains 2 properties:
    • route - The route object for the header
    • descriptor - The descriptor containing the navigation prop and options for the screen

Example:

header: ({ scene }) => {
const { options } = scene.descriptor;
const title =
options.headerTitle !== undefined
? options.headerTitle
: options.title !== undefined
? options.title
: scene.route.name;

return (
<MyHeader
title={title}
leftButton={
<DrawerToggleButton
onPress={scene.descriptor.navigation.toggleDrawer}
/>
}
style={options.headerStyle}
/>
);
};

To set a custom header for all the screens in the navigator, you can specify this option in the screenOptions prop of the navigator.

headerShown

Whether to show or hide the header for the screen. The header is not shown by default. Setting this to true shows the header.

headerTitle

String or a function that returns a React Element to be used by the header. Defaults to scene title. When a function is specified, it receives an object containing allowFontScaling, style and children properties. The children property contains the title string.

headerTitleAlign

How to align the header title. Possible values:

  • left
  • center

Defaults to center on iOS and left on Android.

headerTitleAllowFontScaling

Whether header title font should scale to respect Text Size accessibility settings. Defaults to false.

headerTitleStyle

Style object for the header title component.

headerLeft

Function which returns a React Element to display on the left side of the header. By default, a button to toggle the drawer is shown.

headerLeftAccessibilityLabel

Accessibility label for the header left button.

headerRight

Function which returns a React Element to display on the right side of the header.

headerPressColorAndroid

Color for material ripple (Android >= 5.0 only).

headerTintColor

Tint color for the header.

headerStyle

Style object for the header. You can specify a custom background color here, for example.

headerStatusBarHeight

Extra padding to add at the top of header to account for translucent status bar. By default, it uses the top value from the safe area insets of the device. Pass 0 or a custom value to disable the default behavior, and customize the height.

unmountOnBlur

Whether this screen should be unmounted when navigating away from it. Unmounting a screen resets any local state in the screen as well as state of nested navigators in the screen. Defaults to false.

Normally, we don't recommend enabling this prop as users don't expect their navigation history to be lost when switching screens. If you enable this prop, please consider if this will actually provide a better experience for the user.

Events

The navigator can emit events on certain actions. Supported events are:

drawerOpen

This event is fired when the drawer opens.

Example:

React.useEffect(() => {
const unsubscribe = navigation.addListener('drawerOpen', (e) => {
// Do something
});

return unsubscribe;
}, [navigation]);

drawerClose

This event is fired when the drawer closes.

Example:

React.useEffect(() => {
const unsubscribe = navigation.addListener('drawerClose', (e) => {
// Do something
});

return unsubscribe;
}, [navigation]);

Helpers

The drawer navigator adds the following methods to the navigation prop:

openDrawer

Opens the drawer pane.

navigation.openDrawer();

closeDrawer

Closes the drawer pane.

navigation.closeDrawer();

toggleDrawer

Opens the drawer pane if closed, closes the drawer pane if opened.

navigation.toggleDrawer();

jumpTo

Navigates to an existing screen in the drawer navigator. The method accepts following arguments:

  • name - string - Name of the route to jump to.
  • params - object - Screen params to merge into the destination route (found in the pushed screen through route.params).
navigation.jumpTo('Profile', { owner: 'Satya' });

Example

import { createDrawerNavigator } from '@react-navigation/drawer';

const Drawer = createDrawerNavigator();

function MyDrawer() {
return (
<Drawer.Navigator initialRouteName="Feed">
<Drawer.Screen
name="Feed"
component={Feed}
options={{ drawerLabel: 'Home' }}
/>
<Drawer.Screen
name="Notifications"
component={Notifications}
options={{ drawerLabel: 'Updates' }}
/>
<Drawer.Screen
name="Profile"
component={Profile}
options={{ drawerLabel: 'Profile' }}
/>
</Drawer.Navigator>
);
}

Checking if the drawer is open

You can check if the drawer is open by using the useIsDrawerOpen hook.

import { useIsDrawerOpen } from '@react-navigation/drawer';

// ...

const isDrawerOpen = useIsDrawerOpen();

Nesting drawer navigators inside others

If a drawer navigator is nested inside of another navigator that provides some UI, for example a tab navigator or stack navigator, then the drawer will be rendered below the UI from those navigators. The drawer will appear below the tab bar and below the header of the stack. You will need to make the drawer navigator the parent of any navigator where the drawer should be rendered on top of its UI.