Native tabs
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Learn how to use the native tabs layout in Expo Router.
Native tabs is an experimental feature available in SDK 54 and above, and its API is subject to change.
Tabs are a common way to navigate between different sections of an app. In Expo Router, you can use different tab layouts, depending on your needs. This guide covers the native tabs. Unlike the other tabs layout, native tabs use the native system tab bar.
For other tab-layouts see:
See custom tabs if your app requires a fully custom design that is not possible using system tabs.
See JavaScript tabs if you already use React Navigation's tabs.
Get started
You can use file-based routing to create a tabs layout. Here's an example file structure:
app
_layout.tsx
index.tsx
settings.tsx
The above file structure produces a layout with a tab bar at the bottom of the screen. The tab bar will have two tabs: Home and Settings.
You can use the app/_layout.tsx file to define your app's root layout using tabs. This file is the main layout file for the tab bar and each tab. Inside it, you can control how the tab bar and each tab item look and behave.
import { NativeTabs, Icon, Label } from 'expo-router/unstable-native-tabs'; export default function TabLayout() { return ( <NativeTabs> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="index"> <Label>Home</Label> <Icon sf="house.fill" drawable="custom_android_drawable" /> </NativeTabs.Trigger> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="settings"> <Icon sf="gear" drawable="custom_settings_drawable" /> <Label>Settings</Label> </NativeTabs.Trigger> </NativeTabs> ); }
Finally, you have the two tab files that make up the content of the tabs: app/index.tsx and app/settings.tsx.
import { View, Text, StyleSheet } from 'react-native'; export default function Tab() { return ( <View style={styles.container}> <Text>Tab [Home|Settings]</Text> </View> ); } const styles = StyleSheet.create({ container: { flex: 1, justifyContent: 'center', alignItems: 'center', }, });
The tab file named index.tsx is the default tab when the app loads. The second tab file settings.tsx shows how you can add more tabs to the tab bar.
In contrast to the Stack navigator, tabs are not automatically added to the tab bar. You need to explicitly add them in your layout file using theNativeTabs.Trigger
.
Customizing tab bar items
Native tabs is an experimental feature available in SDK 54 and above, and its API is subject to change.
When you want to customize the tab bar item, we recommend using the components API designed for this purpose. Currently, you can customize:
- Icon: The icon displayed in the tab bar item.
- Label: The label displayed in the tab bar item.
- Badge: The badge displayed in the tab bar item.
Icon
Native tabs is an experimental feature available in SDK 54 and above, and its API is subject to change.
You can use the Icon
component to customize the icon displayed in the tab bar item. The Icon
component accepts a drawable
prop for Android drawables, a sf
prop for Apple's SF Symbols icons, or a src
prop for custom images.
Alternatively, you can pass {default: ..., selected: ...}
to either the sf
or src
prop to specify different icons for the default and selected states.
To use
drawable
props on Android, you can use built-in drawables or add custom drawables.
import { NativeTabs, Icon } from 'expo-router/unstable-native-tabs'; export default function TabLayout() { return ( <NativeTabs> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="index"> <Icon sf={{ default: "house", selected: "house.fill" }} drawable="custom_home_drawable" /> </NativeTabs.Trigger> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="settings"> <Icon src={require('../../../assets/setting_icon.png')} /> </NativeTabs.Trigger> </NativeTabs>
Liquid glass on iOS automatically changes colors based on if the background color is light or dark. There is no callback for this, so you need to use a PlatformColor
to set the color of the icon.
import { DynamicColorIOS } from 'react-native'; import { NativeTabs, Icon } from 'expo-router/unstable-native-tabs'; export default function TabLayout() { return ( <NativeTabs style={{ // For the text color color: DynamicColorIOS({ dark: 'white', light: 'black', }), // For the selected icon color tintColor: DynamicColorIOS({ dark: 'white', light: 'black', }), }}> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="index"> <Icon sf={{ default: 'house', selected: 'house.fill' }} drawable="custom_home_drawable" /> </NativeTabs.Trigger> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="settings"> <Icon src={require('../../../assets/setting_icon.png')} selectedSrc={require('../../../assets/selected_setting_icon.png')} /> </NativeTabs.Trigger> </NativeTabs> ); }
Label
Native tabs is an experimental feature available in SDK 54 and above, and its API is subject to change.
You can use the Label
component to customize the label displayed in the tab bar item. The Label
component accepts a string label passed as a child. If no label is provided, the tab bar item will use the route name as the label.
If you don't want to display a label, you can use the hidden
prop to hide the label.
import { NativeTabs, Label } from 'expo-router/unstable-native-tabs'; export default function TabLayout() { return ( <NativeTabs> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="index"> <Label>Home</Label> </NativeTabs.Trigger> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="settings"> <Label hidden /> </NativeTabs.Trigger> </NativeTabs> ); }
Badge
Native tabs is an experimental feature available in SDK 54 and above, and its API is subject to change.
You can use the Badge
component to customize the badge displayed for the tab bar item. The badge is an additional mark on top of the tab and useful for showing notification or unread message counts.
import { NativeTabs, Badge } from 'expo-router/unstable-native-tabs'; export default function TabLayout() { return ( <NativeTabs> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="messages"> <Badge>9+</Badge> </NativeTabs.Trigger> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="settings"> <Badge /> </NativeTabs.Trigger> </NativeTabs> ); }
Customizing the tab bar
Since the native tab layout's appearance varies by platform, the customization options are also different. For all customization options, see the API reference for NativeTabs
.
Advanced
Hiding a tab conditionally
If you want to hide a tab based on a condition, you can either remove the trigger or pass the hidden
prop to the NativeTabs.Trigger
component.
import { NativeTabs } from 'expo-router/unstable-native-tabs'; export default function TabLayout() { const shouldHideMessagesTab = true; // Replace with your condition return ( <NativeTabs> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="messages" hidden={shouldHideMessagesTab} /> </NativeTabs> ); }
Dismiss behavior
Currently this is an iOS-only feature, but we plan to add it to Android in the future.
By default, tapping a tab that is already active closes all screens in that tab's stack and returns to the root screen. You can disable this by setting the disablePopToTop
prop on the NativeTabs.Trigger
component.
import { NativeTabs, Label } from 'expo-router/unstable-native-tabs'; export default function TabLayout() { return ( <NativeTabs> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="index" disablePopToTop> <Label>Home</Label> </NativeTabs.Trigger> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="settings"> <Label>Settings</Label> </NativeTabs.Trigger> </NativeTabs> ); }
Scroll to top
Currently this is an iOS-only feature, but we plan to add it to Android in the future.
By default, tapping a tab that is already active and showing its root screen scrolls the content back to the top. You can disable this by setting the disableScrollToTop
prop on the NativeTabs.Trigger
component.
import { NativeTabs, Label } from 'expo-router/unstable-native-tabs'; export default function TabLayout() { return ( <NativeTabs> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="index" disableScrollToTop> <Label>Home</Label> </NativeTabs.Trigger> <NativeTabs.Trigger name="settings"> <Label>Settings</Label> </NativeTabs.Trigger> </NativeTabs> ); }
Migrating from JavaScript tabs
Native tabs are not designed to be a drop-in replacement for JavaScript tabs. The native tabs are constrained to the native platform behavior, whereas the JavaScript tabs can be customized more freely. If you aren't interested in the native platform behavior, you can continue using the JavaScript tabs.
Use Trigger
instead of Screen
NativeTabs
introduces the concept of a Trigger
for adding routes to a layout. Unlike a Screen
, which styles routes that are added automatically, the Trigger
system gives you better control for hiding and removing tabs from the tab bar.
Use React components instead of props
NativeTabs
has a React-first API that opts to use components for defining UI in favor of props objects.
- options={{ - tabBarIcon: ({ focused, color, size }) => ( - <Icon name="home" color={color} size={size} /> - ), - }} + <Icon sf="house" drawable="home_drawable" />
Use Stacks inside tabs
The JavaScript <Tabs />
have a mock stack header which is not present in the native tabs. Instead, you should nest a native <Stack />
layout inside the native tabs to support both headers and pushing screens.
Known limitations
A limit of 5 tabs on Android
On Android, there is a limitation of having a maximum of 5 tabs in the tab bar. This restriction comes from the platform's Material Tabs component.
Android does not support custom images
This is in active development. At the moment, you can only use build-time drawables on Android.
Cannot measure the tab bar height
The tabs move around, sometimes being on top of the screen when rendering on iPad, sometimes on the side of the screen when running on Apple Vision Pro, and so on. We're working on a layout function to provide more detailed layout info in the future.
No support for nested tabs
Native tabs do not support nested tabs. If you need nested tabs, you can use the JavaScript tabs.