[react-native] How to set shadows in React Native for android?

Hi am trying to set a shadow for my fab but my attempts has failed so far i tried setting shadow props but that is for ios only so i tried to play with elevation property but it doesn't look right.

Here's what i tried

<View style={{width: 56, height: 56, elevation: 2, borderRadius: 28, marginBottom: 3, backgroundColor: 'rgba(231,76,60,1)'}}></View>

What i need to achieve

enter image description here

This question is related to react-native

The answer is


You can try

//ios    
shadowOpacity: 0.3,
shadowRadius: 3,
shadowOffset: {
    height: 0,
    width: 0
},
//android
elevation: 1

The elevation style property on Android does not work unless backgroundColor has been specified for the element.

Android - elevation style property does not work without backgroundColor

Example:

{
  shadowColor: 'black',
  shadowOpacity: 0.26,
  shadowOffset: { width: 0, height: 2},
  shadowRadius: 10,
  elevation: 3,
  backgroundColor: 'white'
}

You can use my react-native-simple-shadow-view

  • This enables almost identical shadow in Android as in iOS
  • No need to use elevation, works with the same shadow parameters of iOS (shadowColor, shadowOpacity, shadowRadius, offset, etc.) so you don't need to write platform specific shadow styles
  • Can be used with semi-transparent views
  • Supported in android 18 and up

Another solution without using a third-party library is using elevation.

Pulled from react-native documentation. https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/view.html

(Android-only) Sets the elevation of a view, using Android's underlying elevation API. This adds a drop shadow to the item and affects z-order for overlapping views. Only supported on Android 5.0+, has no effect on earlier versions.

elevation will go into the style property and it can be implemented like so.

<View style={{ elevation: 2 }}>
    {children}
</View>

The higher the elevation, the bigger the shadow. Hope this helps!


Just use 'elevation' property to get shadow in android. something like below

const Header = () => {
    // const { textStyle, viewStyle } = styles;
    return (
      <View style={styles.viewStyle}>    
        <Text style={styles.textStyle}>Albums</Text>
      </View>
    )
}


const styles = {
    viewStyle:{
        backgroundColor:'#f8f8f8',
        justifyContext:'center',
        alignItems: 'center',
        padding:16,
        elevation: 2
    }
}

I had the same problem shadow/elevation not showing on Android with elevation:2. Then i noticed that the view element is fool width, so I added margin:2 to the view element and elevation properly appeared.

Style:

    margin: 2,
    shadowColor: '#000',
    shadowOffset: {
      width: 0,
      height: 1
    },
    shadowOpacity: 0.2,
    shadowRadius: 1.41,
    elevation: 2

Android: enter image description here

iOS: enter image description here


I added borderBottomWidth: 0 and it worked fine for me in android.


I have implemented CardView for react-native with elevation, that support android(All version) and iOS. Let me know is it help you or not. https://github.com/Kishanjvaghela/react-native-cardview

import CardView from 'react-native-cardview'
<CardView
          cardElevation={2}
          cardMaxElevation={2}
          cornerRadius={5}>
          <Text>
              Elevation 0
          </Text>
</CardView>

enter image description here


The following will help you to give each Platform the styling you want:

import { Text, View, Platform } from 'react-native';

......
<View style={styles.viewClass}></View>
......


const styles = {
viewClass: {
    justifyContent: 'center',
    alignItems: 'center',
    height: 60,
    ...Platform.select({
        ios: {
            shadowColor: '#000',
            shadowOffset: { width: 0, height: 2 },
            shadowOpacity: 0.2,
        },
        android: {
            elevation: 1

        },
      }),
}
};

Also i'd like to add that if one's trying to apply shadow in a TouchableHighlight Component in which child has borderRadius, the parent element (TouchableHighlight) also need the radius set in order to elevation prop work on Android.


In short, you can't do that in android, because if you see the docs about shadow only Support IOS see doc

The best option you can install 3rd party react-native-shadow


Set elevation: 3 and you should see the shadow in bottom of component without a 3rd party lib. At least in RN 0.57.4


Generating shadows for a circle, react native, android

Based on the answers here, and on text that I found in github (react-native-shadow), I made few tests and thought that some people may find the following helpful.

Here is how the screen looks like:

enter image description here

Code:

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { View, TouchableHighlight, Text } from 'react-native';
import { BoxShadow } from 'react-native-shadow'

export default class ShadowsTest extends Component {

  render() {
    const shadowOpt = {
      width: 100,
      height: 100,
      color: "#000",
      border: 2,
      radius: 50,
      opacity: 0.8,
      x: 3,
      y: 3,
      //style: { marginVertical: 5 }
    }

    return (
      <View style={{ flex: 1 }}>
        <Header
          text={"Shadows Test"} />

        <View style={{ flexDirection: 'row', justifyContent: 'center' }}>
          <View style={{ margin: 10, alignItems: 'center',
              justifyContent: 'center' }}>
            <TouchableHighlight style={{
              position: 'relative',
              width: 100,
              height: 100,
              backgroundColor: "#fff",
              borderRadius: 50,
              borderWidth: 0.8,
              borderColor: '#000',
              // marginVertical:5,
              alignItems: 'center',
              justifyContent: 'center',
              overflow: "hidden" }}>
              <Text style={{ textAlign: 'center' }}>
                0: plain border
              </Text>
            </TouchableHighlight>
          </View>

          <View style={{ margin: 10, alignItems: 'center',
              justifyContent: 'center' }}>
            <BoxShadow setting={ shadowOpt }>
              <TouchableHighlight style={{
                position: 'relative',
                width: 100,
                height: 100,
                backgroundColor: "#fff",
                borderRadius: 50,
                borderWidth: 1,
                borderColor: '#aaa',
                // marginVertical:5,
                alignItems: 'center',
                justifyContent: 'center',
                overflow: "hidden" }}>
                <Text style={{ textAlign: 'center' }}>
                  1: RN shadow package
                </Text>
              </TouchableHighlight>
            </BoxShadow>
          </View>
        </View>

        <View style={{ flexDirection: 'row', justifyContent: 'center' }}>
          <View style={{ margin: 10, alignItems: 'center',
              justifyContent: 'center' }}>
              <TouchableHighlight style={{
                position: 'relative',
                width: 100,
                height: 100,
                backgroundColor: "#fff",
                borderRadius: 50,
                borderWidth: 1,
                borderColor: '#aaa',
                // marginVertical:5,
                alignItems: 'center',
                justifyContent: 'center',
                overflow: "hidden",
                shadowOffset: { width: 15, height: 15 },
                shadowColor: "black",
                shadowOpacity: 0.9,
                shadowRadius: 10,
               }}>
                <Text style={{ textAlign: 'center' }}>
                  2: vanilla RN: shadow (may work on iOS)
                </Text>
              </TouchableHighlight>
          </View>
          <View style={{ margin: 10, alignItems: 'center',
              justifyContent: 'center' }}>
              <TouchableHighlight style={{
                position: 'relative',
                width: 100,
                height: 100,
                backgroundColor: "#fff",
                borderRadius: 50,
                borderWidth: 1,
                borderColor: '#aaa',
                // marginVertical:5,
                alignItems: 'center',
                justifyContent: 'center',
                overflow: "hidden",
                elevation: 15,
               }}>
                <Text style={{ textAlign: 'center' }}>
                  3: vanilla RN: elevation only (15)
                </Text>
              </TouchableHighlight>
          </View>
        </View>

        <View style={{ flexDirection: 'row', justifyContent: 'center', marginBottom: 30 }}>
          <View style={{ margin: 10, alignItems: 'center',
              justifyContent: 'center' }}>
              <TouchableHighlight style={{
                position: 'relative',
                width: 100,
                height: 100,
                backgroundColor: "#fff",
                borderRadius: 50,
                borderWidth: 1,
                borderColor: '#aaa',
                // marginVertical:5,
                alignItems: 'center',
                justifyContent: 'center',
                overflow: "hidden",
                elevation: 5,
               }}>
                <Text style={{ textAlign: 'center' }}>
                  4: vanilla RN: elevation only (5)
                </Text>
              </TouchableHighlight>
          </View>
          <View style={{ margin: 10, alignItems: 'center',
              justifyContent: 'center' }}>
              <TouchableHighlight style={{
                position: 'relative',
                width: 100,
                height: 100,
                backgroundColor: "#fff",
                borderRadius: 50,
                borderWidth: 1,
                borderColor: '#aaa',
                // marginVertical:5,
                alignItems: 'center',
                justifyContent: 'center',
                overflow: "hidden",
                elevation: 50,
               }}>
                <Text style={{ textAlign: 'center' }}>
                  5: vanilla RN: elevation only (50)
                </Text>
              </TouchableHighlight>
          </View>
        </View>
      </View>
    )
  }
}

elevation still no work in Expo v30 && React-native v0.55.4. I have tried the all answers here.

Also, don't try react-native-shadow - their shadow rendering is terrible. So, I am continuing the research.


for an android screen you can use this property elevation.

for example :

 HeaderView:{
    backgroundColor:'#F8F8F8',
    justifyContent:'center',
    alignItems:'center',
    height:60,
    paddingTop:15,

    //Its for IOS
    shadowColor: '#000',
    shadowOffset: { width: 0, height: 2 },
    shadowOpacity: 0.2,

    // its for android 
    elevation: 5,
    position:'relative',

},

For some reason it only worked for my by adding borderColor: 'transparent' (or any other color). My style output looks like this:

{
        borderColor: "transparent", // Required to show shadows on Android for some reason !?!?
        shadowColor: '#000',
        shadowOffset: {
          width: 0,
          height: 0,
        },
        shadowOpacity: 0.3,
        shadowRadius: 5,

        elevation: 15,
      }