React - remove the focus from a input element

In this tutorial, we are going to learn about how to remove the focus from a input element in React.

Consider, we have the following component in our React app.

import React, { useEffect, useRef } from "react";

function App() {
  const searchInput = useRef(null)

  return (
    <div>
      <label>Search </label>
      <input ref={searchInput}  autofocus/>
      <button>Remove focus</button>
    </div>
  );
}

Now, we need to remove the focus from the above input element.

Removing the focus from a input

To remove the focus from a input element in React, first we need to access the element inside the component using ref then call a blur() method on it.

Here is an example:

import React, { useEffect, useRef } from "react";

function App() {
  const searchInput = useRef(null);

   function handleFocus(){
    searchInput.current.blur(); // removing focus
  }

  return (
    <div>
      <label>Search </label>
      <input ref={searchInput}  autofocus/>
      <button onClick={handleFocus}>Remove focus</button>    </div>
  );
}

In the example above, we first added a searchInput ref to the input element. So, we can access and modify the dom node of an input element inside the component methods.

Next, we added a searchInput.current.blur() method inside the handleFocus() event handler, so when a Remove focus button is clicked it removes the focus from a input element.

We used the HTMLElement.blur() to remove the focus from a element.

The blur() method removes the keyboard focus from the element, where it was called on.

If you want to set a focus back to the input element, then call a focus() method on the input element.

searchInput.current.focus(); // adding the focus