Stop using relative paths in your React Native imports. Use Aliases instead.

Use Aliases in your imports with Babel

Instead of doing this in your imports i.e:

import Component from '../../../components/shared/Header';

You could do something like this from anywhere in your project i.e:

import Component from 'components/shared/Header';

Or you could even go as deep as you want i.e:

import Component from '@/shared/Header';

You get the point... no more relative paths ('../../../../../../') to import any of your components.

How?

• Install required dependencies

npm i babel-plugin-module-resolver metro-react-native-babel-preset

• Head over to your babel.config.js file in your project root directory. (If it doesn't exist, create it)

• Add the module-resolver plugin to your plugins array like this:
  

module.exports = {
    presets: ['module:metro-react-native-babel-preset']
    plugins: [
        [
            'module-resolver',
            {
                root: ['.'],
                extensions: ['.ios.js', '.android.js', '.js', '.ts', '.tsx', '.json'],
                alias: {
                    '@': './src/components',
                    'constants': './src/constants',
                    '##': './src/examples',
                },
            },
        ]
    ]
};

Make sure to provide the path you want to reference with an alias, and the alias name itself.

According to the example above now you're able to import files or modules like this

import MyComponent from '@/MyComponent.js'
import MyConstantFile from 'constants/myConstant.js'
import MyExample from '##/MyExample.js'

I would love to engage with other developers like you. Get in touch on Twitter! @dev_astador

Comments

[levancho]

I don't get it, why you and many other articles suggest to create multiple aliases, it is so counter intuitive, and not requires one to memorize all the aliases :))) just create one at the src route and then prefix all others with it, instead of @component, @assets @something else..
just @src/components @src/assets etc... and thats it. simplicity is powerfull.

[enchance]

This article is incomplete for a dev post. What are the pros and cons of this?

[Aaron Moore]

I disagree, the core benefit of using aliases is covered at the beginning.

[Jose Ortega]

Maybe the core benefit is explained but what about the main drawback.
Everything has pros and cons

[Andres Urdaneta]

I'm late to the party, but I've seen this post have had good traction. In order to answer this for people that might be reading this in the future and want an opinion on this:

You have to try it to see if you like using aliases instead of relative paths in your imports. I particularly like it, but I wouldn't do it for every project. There are two downsides with this approach for me:

1. You have to configure it. And you need to come up with a convention for your import shortcuts. And you may change your mind along the way about an import shortcut and that'll need refactor. Is a task of -5min, but either way, it takes time.
2. You loose autocompletion.

[levancho]

also why are you suggesting to install babel plugin as regular dependency not dev Dependency?