What are Unwind segues for and how do you use them?

iOS 6 and Xcode 4.5 has a new feature referred to as "Unwind Segue":

Unwind segues can allow transitioning to existing instances of scenes in a storyboard

In addition to this brief entry in Xcode 4.5's release notes, UIViewController now seem to have a couple of new methods:

- (BOOL)canPerformUnwindSegueAction:(SEL)action fromViewController:(UIViewController *)fromViewController withSender:(id)sender
- (UIViewController *)viewControllerForUnwindSegueAction:(SEL)action fromViewController:(UIViewController *)fromViewController withSender:(id)sender
- (UIStoryboardSegue *)segueForUnwindingToViewController:(UIViewController *)toViewController fromViewController:(UIViewController *)fromViewController identifier:(NSString *)identifier

How do unwind segues work and what they can be used for?

Solution 1:

In a Nutshell

An unwind segue (sometimes called exit segue) can be used to navigate back through push, modal or popover segues (as if you popped the navigation item from the navigation bar, closed the popover or dismissed the modally presented view controller). On top of that you can actually unwind through not only one but a series of push/modal/popover segues, e.g. "go back" multiple steps in your navigation hierarchy with a single unwind action.

When you perform an unwind segue, you need to specify an action, which is an action method of the view controller you want to unwind to.

Objective-C:

- (IBAction)unwindToThisViewController:(UIStoryboardSegue *)unwindSegue
{
}

Swift:

@IBAction func unwindToThisViewController(segue: UIStoryboardSegue) {
}

The name of this action method is used when you create the unwind segue in the storyboard. Furthermore, this method is called just before the unwind segue is performed. You can get the source view controller from the passed UIStoryboardSegue parameter to interact with the view controller that initiated the segue (e.g. to get the property values of a modal view controller). In this respect, the method has a similar function as the prepareForSegue: method of UIViewController.

iOS 8 update: Unwind segues also work with iOS 8's adaptive segues, such as Show and Show Detail.

An Example

Let us have a storyboard with a navigation controller and three child view controllers:

From Green View Controller you can unwind (navigate back) to Red View Controller. From Blue you can unwind to Green or to Red via Green. To enable unwinding you must add the special action methods to Red and Green, e.g. here is the action method in Red:

Objective-C:

@implementation RedViewController

- (IBAction)unwindToRed:(UIStoryboardSegue *)unwindSegue
{
}

@end

Swift:

@IBAction func unwindToRed(segue: UIStoryboardSegue) {
}

After the action method has been added, you can define the unwind segue in the storyboard by control-dragging to the Exit icon. Here we want to unwind to Red from Green when the button is pressed:

You must select the action which is defined in the view controller you want to unwind to:

You can also unwind to Red from Blue (which is "two steps away" in the navigation stack). The key is selecting the correct unwind action.

Before the the unwind segue is performed, the action method is called. In the example I defined an unwind segue to Red from both Green and Blue. We can access the source of the unwind in the action method via the UIStoryboardSegue parameter:

Objective-C:

- (IBAction)unwindToRed:(UIStoryboardSegue *)unwindSegue
{
    UIViewController* sourceViewController = unwindSegue.sourceViewController;

    if ([sourceViewController isKindOfClass:[BlueViewController class]])
    {
        NSLog(@"Coming from BLUE!");
    }
    else if ([sourceViewController isKindOfClass:[GreenViewController class]])
    {
        NSLog(@"Coming from GREEN!");
    }
}

Swift:

@IBAction func unwindToRed(unwindSegue: UIStoryboardSegue) {
    if let blueViewController = unwindSegue.sourceViewController as? BlueViewController {
        println("Coming from BLUE")
    }
    else if let redViewController = unwindSegue.sourceViewController as? RedViewController {
        println("Coming from RED")
    }
}

Unwinding also works through a combination of push/modal segues. E.g. if I added another Yellow view controller with a modal segue, we could unwind from Yellow all the way back to Red in a single step:

Unwinding from Code

When you define an unwind segue by control-dragging something to the Exit symbol of a view controller, a new segue appears in the Document Outline:

Selecting the segue and going to the Attributes Inspector reveals the "Identifier" property. Use this to give a unique identifier to your segue:

After this, the unwind segue can be performed from code just like any other segue:

Objective-C:

[self performSegueWithIdentifier:@"UnwindToRedSegueID" sender:self];

Swift:

performSegueWithIdentifier("UnwindToRedSegueID", sender: self)

Solution 2:

As far as how to use unwind segues in StoryBoard...

Step 1)

Go to the code for the view controller that you wish to unwind to and add this:

Objective-C

- (IBAction)unwindToViewControllerNameHere:(UIStoryboardSegue *)segue {
    //nothing goes here
}

Be sure to also declare this method in your .h file in Obj-C

Swift

@IBAction func unwindToViewControllerNameHere(segue: UIStoryboardSegue) {
    //nothing goes here
}

Step 2)

In storyboard, go to the view that you want to unwind from and simply drag a segue from your button or whatever up to the little orange "EXIT" icon at the top right of your source view.

There should now be an option to connect to "- unwindToViewControllerNameHere"

That's it, your segue will unwind when your button is tapped.

Solution 3:

Unwind segues are used to "go back" to some view controller from which, through a number of segues, you got to the "current" view controller.

Imagine you have something a MyNavController with A as its root view controller. Now you use a push segue to B. Now the navigation controller has A and B in its viewControllers array, and B is visible. Now you present C modally.

With unwind segues, you could now unwind "back" from C to B (i.e. dismissing the modally presented view controller), basically "undoing" the modal segue. You could even unwind all the way back to the root view controller A, undoing both the modal segue and the push segue.

Unwind segues make it easy to backtrack. For example, before iOS 6, the best practice for dismissing presented view controllers was to set the presenting view controller as the presented view controller’s delegate, then call your custom delegate method, which then dismisses the presentedViewController. Sound cumbersome and complicated? It was. That’s why unwind segues are nice.

Solution 4:

Something that I didn't see mentioned in the other answers here is how you deal with unwinding when you don't know where the initial segue originated, which to me is an even more important use case. For example, say you have a help view controller (H) that you display modally from two different view controllers (A and B):

A → H
B → H

How do you set up the unwind segue so that you go back to the correct view controller? The answer is that you declare an unwind action in A and B with the same name, e.g.:

// put in AViewController.swift and BViewController.swift
@IBAction func unwindFromHelp(sender: UIStoryboardSegue) {
    // empty
}

This way, the unwind will find whichever view controller (A or B) initiated the segue and go back to it.

In other words, think of the unwind action as describing where the segue is coming from, rather than where it is going to.

Solution 5:

Swift iOS:

Step 1: define this method into your MASTER controller view. in which you want to go back:

//pragma mark - Unwind Seques
@IBAction func goToSideMenu(segue: UIStoryboardSegue) {

    println("Called goToSideMenu: unwind action")

}

Step 2: (StoryBoard) Right click on you SLAVE/CHILD EXIT button and Select "goToSideMenu" As action to Connect you Button on which you will click to return back to you MASTER controller view:

step 3: Build and Run ...