useClickOutside

Listen for clicks outside of an element. Useful for modal or dropdown

useClickOutside detects clicks (mouse and touch events) that occur outside of a referenced DOM element and invokes a callback when they happen. Pass a ref to the target element, a handler function, and an optional enabled boolean to conditionally toggle the listener. The handler receives the original MouseEvent or TouchEvent.

When to Use

• Closing dropdown menus, popovers, or modals when the user clicks outside of them
• Deselecting or deactivating an inline editing component when focus moves away
• Dismissing notification toasts or context menus on outside interaction

Notes

• Event types: Listens for both mousedown and touchstart events, covering desktop and mobile interactions.
• Cleanup: The event listeners are automatically removed when the component unmounts or when enabled is set to false.
• Also available as useClickAway, which is an alias with the identical API and implementation.

Usage

function Demo() {
  const [visible, setVisible] = useState(false);

  const modalRef = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null);

  useClickOutside(modalRef, () => {
    setVisible(false);
  });

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={() => setVisible(true)}> Open Modal</button>
      {visible && (
        <div
          ref={modalRef}
          style={{
            position: "fixed",
            left: "50%",
            top: "50%",
            transform: "translate(-50%,-50%)",
            width: 420,
            maxWidth: "100%",
            zIndex: 10,
            border: "1px solid var(--c-input-border)",
            background: "var(--c-bg)",
          }}
        >
          <div
            style={{
              padding: "0.4em 2em",
              boxShadow: "2px 2px 10px var(--c-box-shadow)",
            }}
          >
            <p
              style={{
                fontWeight: 700,
                fontSize: "1.4rem",
                marginBottom: "2rem",
              }}
            >
              Demo Modal
            </p>
            <p>Click outside of the modal to close it.</p>
          </div>
        </div>
      )}
    </div>
  );
};

API

useClickOutside

Returns

void

Arguments

BasicTarget

export type BasicTarget<T extends TargetType = Element> = (() => TargetValue<T>) | TargetValue<T> | MutableRefObject<TargetValue<T>>;

TargetValue

type TargetValue<T> = T | undefined | null;

TargetType

type TargetType = HTMLElement | Element | Window | Document | EventTarget;

EventType

export type EventType = MouseEvent | TouchEvent;