Reactopia | Reusable React developer tools

Introduction

Delay updating a value until the user stops typing (or until a timer elapses). Handy for search inputs and autosave.

Platform: React (web and native). Dependencies: react only.

Hook

import { useEffect, useState } from "react";

export function useDebounce<T>(value: T, delayMs = 300): T {
  const [debounced, setDebounced] = useState(value);

  useEffect(() => {
    const id = window.setTimeout(() => setDebounced(value), delayMs);
    return () => window.clearTimeout(id);
  }, [value, delayMs]);

  return debounced;
}

For React Native, replace window.setTimeout / window.clearTimeout with setTimeout / clearTimeout from the global scope.

Example

tsx

const [query, setQuery] = useState("");
const debouncedQuery = useDebounce(query, 400);

useEffect(() => {
  if (!debouncedQuery) return;
  fetchResults(debouncedQuery);
}, [debouncedQuery]);

Footer

Tune delayMs per UX: search fields often use 250–500 ms.