How to add router progress bar in Next.js with one line of code 🤯

The pages in Next.js are lazy-loaded so if you fetch some API or fetch data from a database it can take a few seconds to reach the second page. So to let the user know that the page is being loaded we will add a progress bar at the top of the screen. Here is how it will look-

https://www.loom.com/share/de44131850c743dcbbefc0e4f0e48b48

So let's get started

Creating a Next app

npx create-next-app next-progress-bar

Installing the required dependency

npm i nextjs-progressbar # npm
yarn add nextjs-progressbar # yarn

Creating the pages (for demo)

First, create a new file in the pages folder. This will create a new route for you. I am naming it about.js. . I am just creating an h1 tag and a button that will redirect to the home page.

import Head from "next/head";
import { useRouter } from "next/router";

export default function About() {
  const router = useRouter();

  return (
    <div>
      <Head>
        <title>Create Next App</title>
        <meta name="description" content="Generated by create next app" />
        <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
      </Head>

      <h1>About page</h1>
      <button onClick={() => router.push("/")}>Go to Home</button>
    </div>
  );
}

I will do the same in index.js but redirect to the about page instead

import Head from "next/head";
import { useRouter } from "next/router";

export default function Home() {
  const router = useRouter();

  return (
    <div>
      <Head>
        <title>Create Next App</title>
        <meta name="description" content="Generated by create next app" />
        <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
      </Head>

      <h1>Home page</h1>
      <button onClick={() => router.push("/about")}>Go to about me</button>
    </div>
  );
}

Adding the progress bar 📊

We will go to _app.js and add the NextNProgress component

import "../styles/globals.css";
import NextNProgress from "nextjs-progressbar";

function MyApp({ Component, pageProps }) {
  return (
    <>
      <NextNProgress />
      <Component {...pageProps} />
    </>
  );
}

export default MyApp;

And that is it! The progress bar is now working 🥳🎉.

Customizing the progress bar

You can add some props to NextNProgress like color, height, key, ref, startPosition, and many more. I mostly just change the color and height because I like the other stylings the default way they are. Here is how you can change the color and height-

<NextNProgress height={6} color="#4338C9" />

This will make the progress bar thicker and purple in color. Feel free to try out different colors and styles. Drop your favorite style for the progress bar in the comments 👇🏻

Useful links -