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Navigation prop reference

Each screen component in your app is provided with the navigation prop automatically. The prop contains various convenience functions that dispatch navigation actions on the route's router. It looks like this:

  • navigation
    • navigate - go to another screen, figures out the action it needs to take to do it
    • reset - wipe the navigator state and replace it with the result of several actions
    • goBack - close active screen and move back in the stack
    • addListener - subscribe to updates to navigation lifecycle
    • setParams - make changes to route's params
    • dispatch - send an action to router
    • dangerouslyGetParent - function that returns the parent navigator, if any

It's important to highlight the navigation prop is not passed in to all components; only screen components receive this prop automatically! React Navigation doesn't do any magic here. For example, if you were to define a MyBackButton component and render it as a child of a screen component, you would not be able to access the navigation prop on it. If, however, you wish to access the navigation prop in any of your components, you may use the useNavigation hook.

Navigator-dependent functions

There are several additional functions present on navigation prop based on the kind of the current navigator.

If the navigator is a stack navigator, several alternatives to navigate and goBack are provided and you can use whichever you prefer. The functions are:

  • navigation
    • replace - replace the current route with a new one
    • push - push a new route onto the stack
    • pop - go back in the stack
    • popToTop - go to the top of the stack

If the navigator is a tab navigator, the following are also available:

  • navigation
    • jumpTo - go to a specific screen in the tab navigator

If the navigator is a drawer navigator, the following are also available:

  • navigation
    • jumpTo - go to a specific screen in the drawer navigator
    • openDrawer - open the drawer
    • closeDrawer - close the drawer
    • toggleDrawer - toggle the state, ie. switch from closed to open and vice versa

You can find more details about navigator dependent functions in the documentation for the navigator that you're using.

Common API reference

The vast majority of your interactions with the navigation prop will involve navigate, goBack, and setParams.

navigate - Link to other screens

Call this to link to another screen in your app. Takes the following arguments:

navigation.navigate(name, params)

  • name - A destination name of the route that has been defined somewhere
  • params - Params to merge into the destination route

function HomeScreen({ navigation: { navigate } }) {
  return (
    <View>
      <Text>This is the home screen of the app</Text>
      <Button
        onPress={() =>
          navigate('Profile', { names: ['Brent', 'Satya', 'Michaś'] })
        }
        title="Go to Brent's profile"
      />
    </View>
  );
}
Try this example on Snack

goBack - Close the active screen and move back

Optionally provide a key, which specifies the route to go back from. By default, goBack will close the route that it is called from:

function ProfileScreen({ navigation: { goBack } }) {
  return (
    <View>
      <Button onPress={() => goBack()} title="Go back from ProfileScreen" />
    </View>
  );
}
Try this example on Snack

Going back from a specific screen with goBack

Consider the following navigation stack history:

navigation.navigate({ name: SCREEN, key: SCREEN_KEY_A });
navigation.navigate({ name: SCREEN, key: SCREEN_KEY_B });
navigation.navigate({ name: SCREEN, key: SCREEN_KEY_C });
navigation.navigate({ name: SCREEN, key: SCREEN_KEY_D });

Now you are on screen D and want to go back to screen A (popping D, C, and B). Then you can use navigate:

navigation.navigate({ key: SCREEN_KEY_A }); // will go to screen A FROM screen D

Alternatively, as screen A is the top of the stack, you can use navigation.popToTop().

reset

Replace the navigator state to a new state:

navigation.reset({
  index: 0,
  routes: [{ name: 'Profile' }],
});
Try this example on Snack

Note: Consider the navigator's state object to be internal and subject to change in a minor release. Avoid using properties from the navigation state object except index and routes, unless you really need it. If there is some functionality you cannot achieve without relying on the structure of the state object, please open an issue.

setParams - Make changes to route params

Firing the setParams action allows a screen to change the params in the route, which is useful for updating the header buttons and title. setParams works like React's setState - it merges the provided params object with the current params.

function ProfileScreen({ navigation: { setParams } }) {
  render() {
    return (
      <Button
        onPress={() =>
          navigation.setParams({
            friends:
              route.params.friends[0] === 'Brent'
                ? ['Wojciech', 'Szymon', 'Jakub']
                : ['Brent', 'Satya', 'Michaś'],
            title:
              route.params.title === "Brent's Profile"
                ? "Lucy's Profile"
                : "Brent's Profile",
          })
        }
        title="Swap title and friends"
      />
    );
  }
}
Try this example on Snack

setOptions - Update screen options from the component

The setOptions method lets us set screen options from within the component. This is useful if we need to use the component's props, state or context to configure our screen.

function ProfileScreen({ navigation, route }) {
  const [value, onChangeText] = React.useState(route.params.title);

  navigation.setOptions({
    title: value === '' ? 'No title' : value,
  });

  return (
    <View style={{ flex: 1, alignItems: 'center', justifyContent: 'center' }}>
      <TextInput
        style={{ height: 40, borderColor: 'gray', borderWidth: 1 }}
        onChangeText={text => onChangeText(text)}
        value={value}
      />
      <Button title="Go back" onPress={() => navigation.goBack()} />
    </View>
  );
}
Try this example on Snack

Any options specified here are shallow merged with the options specified when defining the screen.

Navigation events

Screens can add listeners on the navigation prop like in React Navigation. By default, there are 2 events available:

  • focus - This event is emitted when the screen comes into focus
  • blur - This event is emitted when the screen goes out of focus
  • state (advanced) - This event is emitted when the navigator's state changes

Example:

function Profile({ navigation }) {
  React.useEffect(() => {
    const unsubscribe = navigation.addListener('focus', () => {
      // do something
    });

    return unsubscribe;
  }, [navigation]);

  return <ProfileContent />;
}
Try this example on Snack

The navigation.addListener method returns a function to remove the listener which can be returned as the cleanup function in an effect.

Each event listener receives an event object as it's argument. The event object contains following properties:

  • data - Additional data regarding the event passed by the navigator. This can be undefined if no data was passed.
  • preventDefault - For some events, there may be a preventDefault method on the event object. Calling this method will prevent the default action performed by the event (such as switching tabs on tabPress). Support for preventing actions are only available for certain events like tabPress and won't work for all events.

Apart from focus, blur and state, each navigator can emit their own custom events. For example, stack navigator emits transitionStart and transitionEnd events, tab navigator emits tabPress event etc. You can find details about the events emitted on the individual navigator's documentation.

You can only listen to events from the immediate parent navigator. For example, if you try to add a listener in a screen is inside a stack that's nested in a tab, it won't get the tabPress event. If you need to listen to an event from a parent navigator, you may use navigation.dangerouslyGetParent() to get a reference to parent navigator's navigation prop and add a listener.

isFocused - Query the focused state of the screen

Returns true if the screen is focused and false otherwise.

const isFocused = navigation.isFocused();

This method doesn't re-render the screen when the value changes and mainly useful in callbacks. You probably want to use useIsFocused instead of using this directly, it will return a boolean a prop to indicating if the screen is focused.

Advanced API Reference

The dispatch function is much less commonly used, but a good escape hatch if you can't do what you need with the available methods such as navigate, goBack etc. We recommend to avoid using the dispatch method often unless absolutely necessary.

dispatch - Send an action to the router

Use dispatch to send any navigation action to the router. The other navigation functions use dispatch behind the scenes.

Note that if you want to dispatch react-navigation actions you should use the action creators provided in this library.

See Navigation Actions Docs for a full list of available actions.

import { CommonActions } from '@react-navigation/native';

navigation.dispatch(
  CommonActions.navigate({
    name: 'Profile',
    params: {},
  })
);

When dispatching action objects, you can also specify few additional properties:

  • source - The key of the route which should be considered as the source of the action. The key maybe used by the router to handle the action. For example, the replace action will replace the route with the given key. By default, it'll use the key of the route that dispatched the action. You can explicitly pass undefined to override this behavior.
  • target - The key of the navigation state the action should be applied on. By default, actions bubble to other navigators if not handled by a navigator. If target is specified, the action won't bubble if the navigator with the same key didn't handle it.

Example:

import { CommonActions } from '@react-navigation/native';

navigation.dispatch({
  ...CommonActions.navigate('Profile'),
  source: 'someRoutekey',
  target: 'someStatekey',
});

dangerouslyGetParent - get parent navigator's navigation prop

This method returns the navigation prop from the parent navigator that the current navigator is nested in. For example, if you have a stack navigator and a tab navigator nested inside the stack, then you can use dangerouslyGetParent inside a screen of the tab navigator to get the navigation prop passed from the stack navigator.

This method will return undefined if there is no parent navigator. Be sure to always check for undefined when using this method.

dangerouslyGetState - get state of navigator

Note: Consider the navigator's state object to be internal and subject to change in a minor release. Avoid using properties from the navigation state object except index and routes, unless you really need it. If there is some functionality you cannot achieve without relying on the structure of the state object, please open an issue.

This method returns the state object of the navigator which contains the screen. Getting the navigator state could be useful in very rare situations. You most likely don't need to use this method. If you do, make sure you have a good reason.

If you need the state for rendering content, you should use useNavigationState instead of this method.

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