Docs
BlogChangelogStar Us on GitHub
HomeGuidesEASReferenceLearn

Reference version

ArchiveExpo SnackDiscord and ForumsNewsletter
This is documentation for the next SDK version. For up-to-date documentation, see the latest version (SDK 54).

Expo BlurView iconExpo BlurView

GitHub

Changelog

npm

A React component that blurs everything underneath the view.

Android
iOS
tvOS
Web

A React component that blurs everything underneath the view. Common usage of this is for navigation bars, tab bars, and modals.

Starting with SDK 55, expo-blur is now stable on Android, but some code changes are required for the BlurView to work. See the Android support section to learn more.

Known issues

The blur effect does not update when BlurView is rendered before dynamic content is rendered using, for example, FlatList. To fix this, make sure that BlurView is rendered after the dynamic content component. For example:

<View>
  <FlatList />
  <BlurView />
</View>

Installation

Terminal
- npx expo install expo-blur

If you are installing this in an existing React Native app, make sure to install expo in your project.

Usage

Basic iOS and web-only BlurView usage

This is the legacy way of creating a BlurView, which will result in a blur only on iOS. On Android, this will result in a view with a semi-transparent background.

Basic iOS-only BlurView usage
import { Text, StyleSheet, View } from 'react-native';
import { BlurView } from 'expo-blur';

export default function App() {
  const text = 'Hello, my container is blurring contents underneath!';
  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <View style={styles.background}>
        {[...Array(20).keys()].map(i => (
          <View
            key={`box-${i}`}
            style={[styles.box, i % 2 === 1 ? styles.boxOdd : styles.boxEven]}
          />
        ))}
      </View>
      <BlurView intensity={100} style={styles.blurContainer}>
        <Text style={styles.text}>{text}</Text>
      </BlurView>
      <BlurView intensity={80} tint="light" style={styles.blurContainer}>
        <Text style={styles.text}>{text}</Text>
      </BlurView>
      <BlurView intensity={90} tint="dark" style={styles.blurContainer}>
        <Text style={[styles.text, { color: '#fff' }]}>{text}</Text>
      </BlurView>
    </View>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
  },
  blurContainer: {
    flex: 1,
    padding: 20,
    margin: 16,
    textAlign: 'center',
    justifyContent: 'center',
    overflow: 'hidden',
    borderRadius: 20,
  },
  background: {
    flex: 1,
    flexWrap: 'wrap',
    ...StyleSheet.absoluteFill,
  },
  box: {
    width: '25%',
    height: '20%',
  },
  boxEven: {
    backgroundColor: 'orangered',
  },
  boxOdd: {
    backgroundColor: 'gold',
  },
  text: {
    fontSize: 24,
    fontWeight: '600',
  },
});
Basic BlurView usage with Android support

To blur the background of a view on Android, wrap the content to be blurred in a BlurTargetView component and pass its ref to the BlurView.

Note: Notice that as long as all of the BlurViews fit into the bounds of a single BlurTargetView, you can use the single BlurTargetView for multiple BlurViews. This is more efficient than creating multiple BlurTargetViews.
Basic BlurView usage with Android support
import { BlurView, BlurTargetView } from 'expo-blur';
import { useRef } from 'react';
import { Text, StyleSheet, View } from 'react-native';

export default function App() {
  const targetRef = useRef<View | null>(null);
  const text = 'Hello, my container is blurring contents underneath!';

  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <BlurTargetView ref={targetRef} style={styles.background}>
        {[...Array(20).keys()].map(i => (
          <View
            key={`box-${i}`}
            style={[styles.box, i % 2 === 1 ? styles.boxOdd : styles.boxEven]}
          />
        ))}
      </BlurTargetView>
      <BlurView
        blurTarget={targetRef}
        intensity={100}
        style={styles.blurContainer}
        blurMethod="dimezisBlurView">
        <Text style={styles.text}>{text}</Text>
      </BlurView>
      <BlurView
        blurTarget={targetRef}
        intensity={80}
        tint="light"
        style={styles.blurContainer}
        blurMethod="dimezisBlurView">
        <Text style={styles.text}>{text}</Text>
      </BlurView>
      <BlurView
        blurTarget={targetRef}
        intensity={90}
        tint="dark"
        style={styles.blurContainer}
        blurMethod="dimezisBlurView">
        <Text style={[styles.text, { color: '#fff' }]}>{text}</Text>
      </BlurView>
    </View>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
  },
  blurContainer: {
    flex: 1,
    padding: 20,
    margin: 16,
    textAlign: 'center',
    justifyContent: 'center',
    overflow: 'hidden',
    borderRadius: 20,
  },
  background: {
    flex: 1,
    flexWrap: 'wrap',
    ...StyleSheet.absoluteFill,
  },
  box: {
    width: '25%',
    height: '20%',
  },
  boxEven: {
    backgroundColor: 'orangered',
  },
  boxOdd: {
    backgroundColor: 'gold',
  },
  text: {
    fontSize: 24,
    fontWeight: '600',
  },
});

Android support

The blurring feature is stable on Android. There are a few things to keep in mind when migrating:

API

To blur the background of a view on Android, wrap the content to be blurred in a BlurTargetView component and pass its ref to the BlurView. You can see an example in the Usage section.

Performance

The blur can be achieved efficiently only by using the RenderNode Android API, which was introduced in Android SDK 31 (Android 9.0). Due to this, on older versions of Android expo-blur uses the much less efficient RenderScript API. If you want to avoid the performance penalty on older platforms you can use the dimezisBlurViewSdk31Plus BlurMethod which will only blur on newer versions of Android and fall back to the none on older versions.

API

import { BlurView } from 'expo-blur';

Components

BlurView

Android
iOS
tvOS
Web

Type: React.Component<BlurViewProps, BlurViewState>

BlurViewProps

blurMethod

Android
Optional • Type: BlurMethod • Default: 'none'

Blur method to use on Android.

blurReductionFactor

Android
Optional • Type: number • Default: 4

A number by which the blur intensity will be divided on Android.

When using experimental blur methods on Android, the perceived blur intensity might differ from iOS at different intensity levels. This property can be used to fine tune it on Android to match it more closely with iOS.

blurTarget

Android
Optional • Type: RefObject<View | null>

A ref to a BlurTargetView, which this BlurView will blur as its background.

intensity

Android
iOS
tvOS
Web
Optional • Type: number • Default: 50

A number from 1 to 100 to control the intensity of the blur effect.

You can animate this property using react-native-reanimated.

tint

Android
iOS
tvOS
Web
Optional • Type: BlurTint • Default: 'default'

A tint mode which will be applied to the view.

Inherited Props

BlurTargetView

Android
iOS
tvOS
Web

Type: React.Element<BlurTargetViewProps>

Types

BlurMethod

Android

Literal Type: string

Blur method to use on Android.

  • 'none' - Renders a semi-transparent view instead of rendering a blur effect.

  • 'dimezisBlurView' - Uses a native blur view implementation based on BlurView library. This method may lead to decreased performance on Android SDK 30 and below.

  • 'dimezisBlurViewSdk31Plus' - Uses a native blur view implementation based on BlurView library on Android SDK 31 and above, for older versions of Android falls back to 'none'. This is due to performance limitations on older versions of Android, see the performance section to learn more.

Acceptable values are: 'none' | 'dimezisBlurView' | 'dimezisBlurViewSdk31Plus'

BlurTint

Android
iOS
tvOS
Web

Literal Type: string

Acceptable values are: 'light' | 'dark' | 'default' | 'extraLight' | 'regular' | 'prominent' | 'systemUltraThinMaterial' | 'systemThinMaterial' | 'systemMaterial' | 'systemThickMaterial' | 'systemChromeMaterial' | 'systemUltraThinMaterialLight' | 'systemThinMaterialLight' | 'systemMaterialLight' | 'systemThickMaterialLight' | 'systemChromeMaterialLight' | 'systemUltraThinMaterialDark' | 'systemThinMaterialDark' | 'systemMaterialDark' | 'systemThickMaterialDark' | 'systemChromeMaterialDark'

Using borderRadius with BlurView

When using BlurView on Android and iOS, the borderRadius property is not applied when provided explicitly. To fix this, you can use the overflow: 'hidden' style since BlurView inherits props from <View>. See Usage for an example.