React Icons – A Complete Guide to Using Customizable Icons in React Apps

React Icons – A Complete Guide to Using Customizable Icons in React Apps

Learn how to use React Icons in your projects with this comprehensive guide. Discover how to customize SVG icons from popular icon sets like Font Awesome, Material Design, and more. Optimize your React apps with lightweight, scalable, and customizable icons.

What is React Icons?

React Icons is a library that bundles popular icon sets in a single, easy-to-use package. It offers over 1,500 icons, which can be customized using React’s props. Instead of using image files for icons, React Icons uses SVGs, which are scalable and customizable.

Some of the most well-known icon sets included are:

• FontAwesome
• Material Design Icons
• Feather Icons
• Ionicons
• Heroicons
• Octicons
• And many more…

This eliminates the need for separate icon libraries, giving developers the ability to use multiple icon sets without the hassle of handling dependencies for each one.

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Benefits of Using React Icons

1. Lightweight: React Icons is lightweight compared to traditional icon libraries. You only import the icons you need, which helps keep your application size smaller and more performant.
2. Customizable: The icons are based on SVGs, which means you can easily change their size, color, and other properties using CSS or inline styles.
3. Easy to Use: Integrating React Icons into your project is simple. Once installed, you can easily add icons to any React component with just a few lines of code.
4. Variety of Icon Sets: React Icons bundles popular icon libraries, so you don’t need to install different libraries for each set.

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How to Install React Icons

To use React Icons in your React project, you need to install the library first. You can do so via npm or yarn:

1. Install React Icons using npm:

npm install react-icons

2. Or using Yarn:

yarn add react-icons

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How to Use React Icons

Once the package is installed, you can import and use icons in your React components. The process is very simple.

1. Importing Icons

You can import specific icons from a particular icon set, or import all icons and use them as needed. Below are examples of both approaches:

Example 1: Importing a Specific Icon

You can import only the icon you need for better performance:

import { FaBeer } from 'react-icons/fa';

function App() {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Let's go for a <FaBeer />!</h1>
    </div>
  );
}

export default App;

In this example, we imported the FaBeer icon from Font Awesome (fa).

Example 2: Importing Multiple Icons

You can import multiple icons from the same set as well:

import { FaBeer, FaCoffee, FaApple } from 'react-icons/fa';

function App() {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>
        I like <FaBeer /> and <FaCoffee /> with <FaApple />
      </h1>
    </div>
  );
}

export default App;

Example 3: Importing Icons from Different Sets

React Icons also allows you to import icons from different icon sets:

import { FaBeer } from 'react-icons/fa';
import { MdHome } from 'react-icons/md';
import { IoIosPhonePortrait } from 'react-icons/io';

function App() {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Icons from different sets:</h1>
      <FaBeer />
      <MdHome />
      <IoIosPhonePortrait />
    </div>
  );
}

export default App;

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Customizing Icons

React Icons gives you the flexibility to customize icons by passing props to the component. Some common props that you can use to customize the icons include:

1. Size: You can change the size of the icon by using the size prop. You can use values like small, medium, large, or any specific number (e.g., 20px, 50px).

   <FaBeer size={40} />
   

2. Color: You can customize the color of the icon using the color prop.

   <FaBeer color="blue" />
   

3. Style: You can add inline CSS styles using the style prop.

   <FaBeer style={{ color: 'green', fontSize: '30px' }} />
   

4. ClassName: You can apply custom CSS classes to style your icons more flexibly.

   <FaBeer className="custom-icon" />
   

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List of Commonly Used Icon Sets

Icons supports many well-known icon sets. Below are some of the most commonly used sets:

1. Font Awesome (fa): One of the most popular icon sets, includes a wide variety of icons like social media icons, user interface icons, and more.

   import { FaBeer } from 'react-icons/fa';
   

2. Material Design Icons (md): A collection of icons designed for Google’s Material Design.

   import { MdHome } from 'react-icons/md';
   

3. Feather Icons (fi): A minimalistic icon set with thin strokes.

   import { FiHome } from 'react-icons/fi';
   

4. Ionicons (io): A set of beautifully crafted icons designed for use in mobile apps.

   import { IoIosAirplane } from 'react-icons/io';
   

5. Heroicons (hi): A set of high-quality SVG icons with a modern look.

   import { HiOutlineHome } from 'react-icons/hi';
   

6. Octicons (oc): GitHub’s official icon set, used for project management and software development.

   import { Octicon, HomeIcon } from 'react-icons/oct';
   

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React Icons Best Practices

Here are some tips to help you get the most out of Icons:

1. Import Only What You Need: To minimize the size of your app, import only the icons you will use. React Icons supports tree-shaking, so unused icons won’t be included in your final bundle.
2. Use React Context: For consistency, especially with the size and color of icons, you can use React Context to set default icon properties for your entire app.
3. Use CSS for Customization: While React Icons provides props like size and color, it’s often best practice to style your icons with CSS classes to keep them separate from the business logic of your React components.
4. Optimize Performance: Since React Icons uses SVGs, it’s inherently performant. However, always check your app’s bundle size and use tools like Webpack to analyze and optimize the size of your application.

Icons is an essential library for React developers who need a flexible and efficient way to integrate icons into their projects. With its vast collection of customizable icons and the ability to easily import only the icons you need, React Icons makes it easy to add professional-looking and scalable vector icons to your React applications.

Whether you’re building a simple UI or a complex web app, Icons ensures your icons are consistent, fast, and customizable.

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