File: safe-area-context.md | Updated: 11/15/2025
Hide navigation
Search
Ctrl K
Home Guides EAS Reference Learn
Reference version
SDK 53
Archive Expo Snack Discord and Forums Newsletter
A library with a flexible API for accessing the device's safe area inset information.
Android
iOS
tvOS
Web
Bundled version:
5.4.0
Copy page
react-native-safe-area-context provides a flexible API for accessing device safe area inset information. This allows you to position your content appropriately around notches, status bars, home indicators, and other such device and operating system interface elements. It also provides a SafeAreaView component that you can use in place of View to automatically inset your views to account for safe areas.
Terminal
Copy
- npx expo install react-native-safe-area-context
If you are installing this in an existing React Native app
, make sure to install expo
in your project. Then, follow the installation instructions
provided in the library's README or documentation.
import { SafeAreaView, SafeAreaProvider, SafeAreaInsetsContext, useSafeAreaInsets, } from 'react-native-safe-area-context';
SafeAreaViewSafeAreaView is a regular View component with the safe area edges applied as padding.
If you set your own padding on the view, it will be added to the padding from the safe area.
If you are targeting web, you must set up
SafeAreaProvideras described in the Context section.
import { SafeAreaView } from 'react-native-safe-area-context'; function SomeComponent() { return ( <SafeAreaView> <View /> </SafeAreaView> ); }
SafeAreaView Props
edgesOptional • Type: Edge[]
• Default: ["top", "right", "bottom", "left"]
Sets the edges to apply the safe area insets to.
emulateUnlessSupportedOptional • Type: boolean • Default: true
On iOS 10+, emulate the safe area using the status bar height and home indicator sizes.
useSafeAreaInsets()Hook gives you direct access to the safe area insets. This is a more advanced use-case, and might perform worse than SafeAreaView when rotating the device.
Example
import { useSafeAreaInsets } from 'react-native-safe-area-context'; function HookComponent() { const insets = useSafeAreaInsets(); return <View style={{ paddingTop: insets.top }} />; }
Returns
EdgeString union of possible edges.
Acceptable values are: 'top', 'right', 'bottom', 'left'.
EdgeInsetsRepresent the hook result.
EdgeInsets Properties
| Name | Type | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| bottom | number | Value of bottom inset. |
| left | number | Value of left inset. |
| right | number | Value of right inset. |
| top | number | Value of top inset. |
To use safe area context, you need to add SafeAreaProvider in your app root component.
You may need to add it in other places too, including at the root of any modals any routes when using
react-native-screen.
import { SafeAreaProvider } from 'react-native-safe-area-context'; function App() { return <SafeAreaProvider>...</SafeAreaProvider>; }
Then, you can use useSafeAreaInsets()
hook and also consumer API to access inset data:
import { SafeAreaInsetsContext } from 'react-native-safe-area-context'; function Component() { return ( <SafeAreaInsetsContext.Consumer> {insets => <View style={{ paddingTop: insets.top }} />} </SafeAreaInsetsContext.Consumer> ); }
If you can, use SafeAreaView. It's implemented natively so when rotating the device, there is no delay from the asynchronous bridge.
To speed up the initial render, you can import initialWindowMetrics from this package and set as the initialMetrics prop on the provider as described in Web SSR. You cannot do this if your provider remounts, or you are using react-native-navigation.
import { SafeAreaProvider, initialWindowMetrics } from 'react-native-safe-area-context'; function App() { return <SafeAreaProvider initialMetrics={initialWindowMetrics}>...</SafeAreaProvider>; }
If you are doing server side rendering on the web, you can use initialSafeAreaInsets to inject values based on the device the user has, or simply pass zero. Otherwise, insets measurement will break rendering your page content since it is async.
In a web-only app, you would use CSS environment variables to get the size of the screen's safe area insets.
styles.css
Copy
div { padding-top: env(safe-area-inset-top); padding-left: env(safe-area-inset-left); padding-bottom: env(safe-area-inset-bottom); padding-right: env(safe-area-inset-right); }
Universally, the hook useSafeAreaInsets() can provide access to this information.
App.js
Copy
import { useSafeAreaInsets } from 'react-native-safe-area-context'; function App() { const insets = useSafeAreaInsets(); return ( <View style={{ paddingTop: insets.top, paddingLeft: insets.left, paddingBottom: insets.bottom, paddingRight: insets.right, }} /> ); }