How to reduce animations when requested

Paul Hudson @twostraws February 9th 2021

Updated for Xcode 12.5

SwiftUI’s withAnimation() function makes it easy to perform custom animations on our views, but it doesn’t respect the “Reduce Motion” accessibility setting and so might make your apps hard to use for many people.

If you want to use withAnimation() while also honoring that setting, I recommend you add a global function like this one:

func withOptionalAnimation<Result>(_ animation: Animation? = .default, _ body: () throws -> Result) rethrows -> Result {
    if UIAccessibility.isReduceMotionEnabled {
        return try body()
    } else {
        return try withAnimation(animation, body)
    }
}

That automatically checks whether Reduce Motion is enabled every time the animation is triggered, and disables it for users who have specifically requested less animation.

In case you were wondering, withAnimation() is also a global function – a function that sits outside of any other type – so this new withOptionalAnimation()` function will behave the same.

So, you can use it wherever you would use withAnimation(), like this:

struct ContentView: View {
    @State private var scale: CGFloat = 1

    var body: some View {
        Text("Hello, World!")
            .scaleEffect(scale)
            .onTapGesture {
                withOptionalAnimation {
                    scale *= 1.5
                }
            }
    }
}

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How to reduce animations when requested

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