The <DragOverlay> component provides a way to render a draggable overlay that is removed from the normal document flow and is positioned relative to the viewport.

When should I use a drag overlay?

Depending on your use-case, you may want to use a drag overlay rather than transforming the original draggable source element that is connected to the useDraggable hook:

• If you'd like to show a preview of where the draggable source will be when dropped, you can update the position of the draggable source while dragging without affecting the drag overlay.

• If your item needs to move from one container to another while dragging, we highly recommend you use the <DragOverlay> component so the draggable item can unmount from its original container while dragging and mount back into a different container without affecting the drag overlay.

• If your draggable item is within a scrollable container, we also recommend you use a <DragOverlay>, otherwise you'll need to set the draggable element to position: fixed yourself so the item isn't restricted to the overflow and stacking context of its scroll container, and can move without being affected by the scroll position of its container.

• If your useDraggable items are within a virtualized list, you will absolutely want to use a drag overlay, since the original drag source can unmount while dragging as the virtualized container is scrolled.

• If you want smooth drop animations without the effort of building them yourself.

Usage

You may render any valid JSX within the children of the <DragOverlay>. However, make sure that the components rendered within the drag overlay do not use the useDraggable hook.

The <DragOverlay> component should remain mounted at all times so that it can perform the drop animation. If you conditionally render the <DragOverlay> component, drop animations will not work.

As a rule of thumb, try to render the <DragOverlay> outside fo your draggable components, and follow the presentational component pattern to maintain a good separation of concerns.

Instead, you should conditionally render the children passed to the <DragOverlay>:

import React, {useState} from 'react';
import {DndContext, DragOverlay} from '@dnd-kit/core';
​
import {Draggable} from './Draggable';
​
/* The implementation details of <Item> and <ScrollableList> are not
 * relevant for this example and are therefore omitted. */
​
function App() {
  const [items] = useState(['1', '2', '3', '4', '5']);
  const [activeId, setActiveId] = useState(null);
  
  return (
    <DndContext onDragStart={handleDragStart} onDragEnd={handleDragEnd}>
      <ScrollableList>
        {items.map(id =>
          <Draggable key={id} id={id}>
            <Item value={`Item ${id}`} />
          </Draggable>
        )}
      </ScrollableList>
      
      <DragOverlay>
        {activeId ? (
          <Item value={`Item ${activeId}`} /> 
        ): null}
      </DragOverlay>
    </DndContext>
  );
  
  function handleDragStart(event) {
    setActiveId(event.active.id);
  }
  
  function handleDragEnd() {
    setActiveId(null);
  }
}

import React from 'react';
import {useDraggable} from '@dnd-kit/core';
​
function Draggable(props) {
  const {attributes, listeners, setNodeRef} = useDraggable({
    id: props.id,
  });
  
  return (
    <li ref={setNodeRef} {...listeners} {...attributes}>
      {props.children}
    </li>
  );
}

Patterns

Presentational components

We highly recommend that all the components you intend to make draggable be presentational components that are decoupled from @dnd-kit entirely.

A common pitfall when using the DragOverlay component is rendering the same component that calls useDraggable inside the DragOverlay. This will lead to unexpected results, since there will be an id collision between the two components both calling useDraggable with the same id.

Instead, create a presentational version of your component that you intend on rendering in the drag overlay, and another version that is draggable and renders the presentational component.

Wrapper nodes

As you may have noticed from the example above, we can create small abstract components that render a wrapper node and make any children rendered within draggable:

import React from 'react';
import {useDraggable} from '@dnd-kit/core';
​
function Draggable(props) {
  const Element = props.element || 'div';
  const {attributes, listeners, setNodeRef} = useDraggable({
    id: props.id,
  });
  
  return (
    <Element ref={setNodeRef} {...listeners} {...attributes}>
      {props.children}
    </Element>
  );
}

Using this pattern, we can then render our presentational components within <Draggable> and within <DragOverlay>:

import React, {useState} from 'react';
import {DndContext, DragOverlay} from '@dnd-kit/core';
​
import {Draggable} from './Draggable';
​
/* The implementation details of <Item> is not
 * relevant for this example and therefore omitted. */
​
function App() {
  const [isDragging, setIsDragging] = useState(false);
  
  return (
    <DndContext onDragStart={handleDragStart} onDragEnd={handleDragEnd}>
      <Draggable id="my-draggable-element">
        <Item />
      </Draggable>
      
      <DragOverlay>
        {isDragging ? (
          <Item />
        ): null}
      </DragOverlay>
    </DndContext>
  );
  
  function handleDragStart() {
    setIsDragging(true);
  }
  
  function handleDragEnd() {
    setIsDragging(false);
  }
}

Ref forwarding

Use the ref forwarding pattern to connect your presentational components to the useDraggable hook:

import React, {forwardRef} from 'react';
​
const Item = forwardRef(({children, ...props}, ref) => {
  return (
    <li {...props} ref={ref}>{children}</li>
  )
});

This way, you can create two versions of your component, one that is presentational, and one that is draggable and renders the presentational component without the need for additional wrapper elements:

import React from 'react';
import {useDraggable} from '@dnd-kit/core';
​
function DraggableItem(props) {
  const {attributes, listeners, setNodeRef} = useDraggable({
    id: props.id,
  });
  
  return (
    <Item ref={setNodeRef} {...attributes} {...listeners}>
      {value}
    </Item>
  )
});

Portals

The drag overlay is not rendered in a portal by default. Rather, it is rendered in the container where it is rendered.

If you would like to render the <DragOverlay> in a different container than where it is rendered, import the createPortal helper from react-dom:

import React, {useState} from 'react';
import {createPortal} from 'react-dom';
import {DndContext, DragOverlay} from '@dnd-kit/core';
​
function App() {
  return (
    <DndContext>
      {createPortal(
        <DragOverlay>{/* ... */}</DragOverlay>,
        document.body,
      )}
    </DndContext>
  );
}

Props

{
  adjustScale?: boolean;
  children?: React.ReactNode;
  className?: string;
  dropAnimation?: DropAnimation | null;
  style?: React.CSSProperties;
  transition?: string | TransitionGetter;
  modifiers?: Modifiers;
  wrapperElement?: keyof JSX.IntrinsicElements;
  zIndex?: number;
}

Children

You may render any valid JSX within the children of the <DragOverlay>. However, make sure that the components rendered within the drag overlay do not use the useDraggable hook.

Prefer conditionally rendering the children of <DragOverlay> rather than conditionally rendering <DragOverlay>, otherwise drop animations will not work.

Class name and inline styles

If you'd like to customize the wrapper element that the DragOverlay's children are rendered into, use the className and style props:

<DragOverlay
  className="my-drag-overlay"
  style={{
    width: 500,
  }}
>
  {/* ... */}
</DragOverlay>

Drop animation

Use the dropAnimation prop to configure the drop animation.

interface DropAnimation {
  duration: number;
  easing: string;
}

The duration option should be a number, in milliseconds. The default value is 250 milliseconds. The easing option should be a string that represents a valid CSS easing function. The default easing is ease.

<DragOverlay dropAnimation={{
  duration: 500,
  easing: 'cubic-bezier(0.18, 0.67, 0.6, 1.22)',
}}>
  {/* ... */}
</DragOverlay>

To disable drop animations, set the dropAnimation prop to null.

<DragOverlay dropAnimation={null}>
  {/* ... */}
</DragOverlay>

Modifiers

Modifiers let you dynamically modify the movement coordinates that are detected by sensors. They can be used for a wide range of use-cases, which you can learn more about by reading the Modifiers documentation.

For example, you can use modifiers to restrict the movement of the <DragOverlay> to the bounds of the window:

import {DndContext, DragOverlay} from '@dnd-kit';
import {
  restrictToWindowEdges,
} from '@dnd-kit/modifiers';
​
function App() {
  return (
    <DndContext>
      {/* ... */}
      <DragOverlay modifiers={[restrictToWindowEdges]}>
        {/* ... */}
      </DragOverlay>
    </DndContext>
  )
}

Transition

By default, the <DragOverlay> component does not have any transitions, unless activated by the Keyboard sensor. Use the transition prop to create a function that returns the transition based on the activator event. The default implementation is:

function defaultTransition(activatorEvent) {
  const isKeyboardActivator = activatorEvent instanceof KeyboardEvent;
​
  return isKeyboardActivator ? 'transform 250ms ease' : undefined;
};

Wrapper element

By default, the <DragOverlay> component renders your elements within a div element. If your draggable elements are list items, you'll want to update the <DragOverlay> component to render a ul wrapper instead, since wrapping a li item without a parent ul is invalid HTML:

<DragOverlay wrapperElement="ul">
  {/* ... */}
</DragOverlay>

z-index

The zIndex prop sets the z-order of the drag overlay. The default value is 999 for compatibility reasons, but we highly recommend you use a lower value.