How to disable back swipe gesture in UINavigationController on iOS 7

In iOS 7 Apple added a new default navigation behavior. You can swipe from the left edge of the screen to go back on the navigation stack. But in my app, this behavior conflicts with my custom left menu. So, is it possible to disable this new gesture in UINavigationController?


I found a solution:

Objective-C:

if ([self.navigationController respondsToSelector:@selector(interactivePopGestureRecognizer)]) {
    self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.enabled = NO;
}

Swift 3+:
self.navigationController?.interactivePopGestureRecognizer?.isEnabled = false


I found out setting the gesture to disabled only doesn't always work. It does work, but for me it only did after I once used the backgesture. Second time it wouldn't trigger the backgesture.

Fix for me was to delegate the gesture and implement the shouldbegin method to return NO:

- (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
    [super viewDidAppear:animated];

    // Disable iOS 7 back gesture
    if ([self.navigationController respondsToSelector:@selector(interactivePopGestureRecognizer)]) {
        self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.enabled = NO;
        self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.delegate = self;
    }
}

- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
    [super viewWillDisappear:animated];

    // Enable iOS 7 back gesture
    if ([self.navigationController respondsToSelector:@selector(interactivePopGestureRecognizer)]) {
        self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.enabled = YES;
        self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.delegate = nil;
    }
}

- (BOOL)gestureRecognizerShouldBegin:(UIGestureRecognizer *)gestureRecognizer
{
    return NO;
}

Just remove gesture recognizer from NavigationController. Work in iOS 8.

if ([self.navigationController respondsToSelector:@selector(interactivePopGestureRecognizer)])
    [self.navigationController.view removeGestureRecognizer:self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer];

As of iOS 8 the accepted answer no longer works. I needed to stop the swipping to dismiss gesture on my main game screen so implemented this:

- (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
     [super viewDidAppear:animated];

if ([self.navigationController respondsToSelector:@selector(interactivePopGestureRecognizer)]) {
    self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.delegate = self;
    }
}

- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewWillDisappear:animated];
    if ([self.navigationController respondsToSelector:@selector(interactivePopGestureRecognizer)]) {
    self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.delegate = nil;
    }

}

- (BOOL)gestureRecognizerShouldBegin:(UIGestureRecognizer *)gestureRecognizer
{
     return NO;
}

I've refined Twan's answer a bit, because:

  1. your view controller may be set as a delegate to other gesture recognisers
  2. setting the delegate to nil leads to hanging issues when you go back to the root view controller and make a swipe gesture before navigating elsewhere.

The following example assumes iOS 7:

{
    id savedGestureRecognizerDelegate;
}

- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
    savedGestureRecognizerDelegate = self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.delegate;
    self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.delegate = self;
}

- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
    self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer.delegate = savedGestureRecognizerDelegate;
}

- (BOOL)gestureRecognizerShouldBegin:(UIGestureRecognizer *)gestureRecognizer
{
    if (gestureRecognizer == self.navigationController.interactivePopGestureRecognizer) {
        return NO;
    }
    // add whatever logic you would otherwise have
    return YES;
}