The Ultimate Guide to the Material-UI Snackbar

The MUI Snackbar component (also known as a Toast message) provides a simple way to notify users about important information. The component can be quickly styled and has several handy props for customizing transitions. In this post we will create an example Snackbar and I will explain the props I use.

A common third-party library used with Snackbar is Notistack, which controls queueing of Snackbars.

There is a Code Sandbox link with a live demo in the Resources section.

Material-UI Snackbar Content

The Snackbar component has one support component called SnackbarContent. Interestingly, the DOM renders the same whether you use the component or not.

In the screenshot below, we see a div with class .MuiSnackbarContent-root. This renders the same when you use either code snippet below:

//method 1
<Snackbar message="Cool styling!"/>

//method 2
<Snackbar>
  <SnackbarContent message="Cool styling!"/>
</Snackbar>

Since both methods are the same, I suggest you use the one that requires less code.

It’s also important to notice that you need to use the message prop instead of passing text as a child component of the Snackbar.

Material-UI Snackbar with Line Break

The MUI Snackbar is not intended to have a multiline message (but there is a backdoor way to do it). Here’s what the docs say:

Snackbars contain a single line of text directly related to the operation performed,

MUI Snackbar Docs

I tried several methods for adding a line break, and the Snackbar ignored all of them. For example, passing <br/> and \r as part of the message prop did not work.

What did work is passing an Alert component as child of Snackbar:

<Snackbar>
  <Alert severity="success" sx={{ width: "100%" }}>
    This is a success message! <br />
    Test Successful
  </Alert>
</Snackbar>

Here the line break is respected.

Material-UI Snackbar Size and Style

The MUI Snackbar has responsive styling by default:

• If the viewport is less than 600px, the Snackbar will take full width
• If the viewport is greater than 600px, the Snackbar will take up a maximum width of 240px

Take a look at the DOM screenshot below. Interestingly, the media query uses left: 'auto' to accomplish the sizing of 240px.

Width can easily be customized by adding a width attribute to the sx prop. It will affect the Snackbar at all breakpoints.

Other stylings can be applied with the sx prop as well. Remember how we discussed the SnackbarContent prop above? Some stylings require a nested selector targeting .MuiSnackbarContent-root in order to properly take effect.

Here’s the styling code for width, color, and background color:

<Snackbar
  sx={{
    width: 400,
    color: "secondary",
    //backgroundColor: "green", This doesn't work
    "& .MuiSnackbarContent-root": { backgroundColor: "green" }
  }}
/>

Color and width are applied at the root level, but the background color has to be applied to the child element in the DOM. Play around with it in the Code Sandbox and learn more.

Material-UI Snackbar Slide and Transition

There are lots of customizations available for Snackbar transitions. I set the below props in my demo:

anchorOrigin={{ vertical: "top", horizontal: "right" }}
autoHideDuration={1000}
transitionDuration={{ enter: 1000, exit: 2000 }}
TransitionComponent={Slide}

TransitionProps={{ enter: true, exit: false}}

• anchorOrigin – this controls where the Snackbar appears
• autoHideDuration – this control if and when the Snackbar closes itself. This will automatically fire the close event
• transitionDuration – the amount of time it take appearance, enter, and exit transitions to complete. In my example I omitted the appear field
• TransitionComponent – There are three different component options: Slide, Grow, and Fade
• TransitionProps – This is a “prop of props”. It passes props to the underlying Transition object. I simply used it to disable the exit transition

MUI makes transitions easy with its assortment of props. Be aware that a transition is itself a component that accepts props.

Resources

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The MUI Dialog component has a similar use case to the Snackbar.

Code Sandbox Link

MUI Snackbar API docs

MUI SnackbarContent API docs