How to let users delete rows from a list

Paul Hudson @twostraws July 1st 2021

Updated for Xcode 14.0 beta 1

SwiftUI makes it easy to let users swipe to delete rows by attaching an onDelete(perform:) handler to some or all of your data. This handler needs to have a specific signature that accepts multiples indexes to delete, like this:

func delete(at offsets: IndexSet) {
    // delete the objects here
}

Inside there you will usually want to call Swift’s remove(atOffsets:) method to delete the requested rows from your sequence. Because SwiftUI is watching your state, any changes you make will automatically be reflected in your UI.

For example, this code creates a ContentView struct with a list of three items, then attaches an onDelete(perform:) modifier that removes any item from the list:

struct ContentView: View {
    @State private var users = ["Paul", "Taylor", "Adele"]

    var body: some View {
        NavigationView {
            List {
                ForEach(users, id: \.self) { user in
                    Text(user)
                }
                .onDelete(perform: delete)
            }
            .navigationTitle("Users")
        }
    }

    func delete(at offsets: IndexSet) {
        users.remove(atOffsets: offsets)
    }
}

Download this as an Xcode project

Three rows in an iOS list, with the middle one showing a delete button after a swipe.

If you run that code you’ll find you can swipe to delete any row in the list.

Tip: In case you were wondering, onDelete() exists as a modifier for ForEach but not for List directly. This is because lists can include static rows, which of course cannot be deleted.

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How to let users delete rows from a list

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