<NativeTabs />

Platform-native tab bars. Renders UITabBarController on iOS and Material BottomNavigationView on Android, providing the native look and feel for tab navigation.

Experimental — requires additional dependencies.

Install

npx expo install @bottom-tabs/react-navigation react-native-bottom-tabs

Usage

Use NativeTabs in a _layout.tsx file just like Tabs:

import { NativeTabs } from 'one/native-tabs'

export default function Layout() {
  return (
    <NativeTabs>
      <NativeTabs.Screen
        name="feed"
        options={{
          title: 'Feed',
          tabBarIcon: () => ({ sfSymbol: 'newspaper' }),
        }}
      />
      <NativeTabs.Screen
        name="notifications"
        options={{
          title: 'Notifications',
          tabBarIcon: () => ({ sfSymbol: 'bell' }),
        }}
      />
      <NativeTabs.Screen
        name="profile"
        options={{
          title: 'Profile',
          tabBarIcon: () => ({ sfSymbol: 'person' }),
        }}
      />
    </NativeTabs>
  )
}

Protected Routes

Guard tabs behind authentication with NativeTabs.Protected:

import { NativeTabs } from 'one/native-tabs'

export default function Layout() {
  const { isAuthed } = useAuth()
  return (
    <NativeTabs>
      <NativeTabs.Screen name="login" />
      <NativeTabs.Protected guard={isAuthed}>
        <NativeTabs.Screen name="dashboard" />
        <NativeTabs.Screen name="settings" />
      </NativeTabs.Protected>
    </NativeTabs>
  )
}

Notes

@bottom-tabs/react-navigation and react-native-bottom-tabs are optional peer dependencies — the app won’t crash if they’re not installed, but NativeTabs will throw a clear error message when used.
On iOS, SF Symbols are used for tab icons via the sfSymbol property.
On Android, Material Symbols can be used via the md property.
NativeTabs is also available as a standalone import: import { NativeTabs } from 'one/native-tabs'

PreviousProtected

withLayoutContext

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