Why and when to use default export over named exports in es6 Modules?

I have referred all the questions in stackoverflow. But none of the suggested why and when to use default export.

I just saw that default can be metioned "When there is only one export in a file"

Any other reason for using default export in es6 modules?


Some differences that might make you choose one over the other:

Named Exports

  • Can export multiple values
  • MUST use the exported name when importing

Default Exports

  • Export a single value
  • Can use any name when importing

This article does a nice job of explaining when it would be a good idea to use one over the other.


It's somewhat a matter of opinion, but there are some objective aspects to it:

  • You can have only one default export in a module, whereas you can have as many named exports as you like.

  • If you provide a default export, the programmer using it has to come up with a name for it. This can lead to inconsistency in a codebase, where Mary does

    import foo from "./foo";
    

    ...but Joe does

    import getFoo from "./foo";
    

    In constrast, with a named export, the programmer doesn't have to think about what to call it unless there's a conflict with another identifier in their module. It's just

    import { foo } from "./foo";
    

    ...(with an as getFoo if necessary to avoid a conflict).

  • With a named export, the person importing it has to specify the name of what they're importing, which means they get a nice early error if they try to import something that doesn't exist.

  • If you consistently only use named exports, programmers importing from modules in the project don't have to think about whether what they want is the default or a named export.


With named exports, one can have multiple named exports per file. Then import the specific exports they want surrounded in braces. The name of imported module has to be the same as the name of the exported module.

// imports
// ex. importing a single named export
import { MyComponent } from "./MyComponent";

// ex. importing multiple named exports
import { MyComponent, MyComponent2 } from "./MyComponent";

// ex. giving a named import a different name by using "as":
import { MyComponent2 as MyNewComponent } from "./MyComponent";

// exports from ./MyComponent.js file
export const MyComponent = () => {}
export const MyComponent2 = () => {}

You can also alias named imports, assign a new name to a named export as you import it, allowing you to resolve naming collisions, or give the export a more informative name.

import MyComponent as MainComponent from "./MyComponent";

You can also Import all the named exports onto an object:

import * as MainComponents from "./MyComponent";
// use MainComponents.MyComponent and MainComponents.MyComponent2 here

One can have only one default export per file. When we import we have to specify a name and import like:

// import

import MyDefaultComponent from "./MyDefaultExport";

// export

const MyComponent = () => {}

export default MyComponent;

The naming of import is completely independent in default export and we can use any name we like.

From MDN: Named exports are useful to export several values. During the import, one will be able to use the same name to refer to the corresponding value. Concerning the default export, there is only a single default export per module. A default export can be a function, a class, an object or anything else. This value is to be considered as the “main” exported value since it will be the simplest to import.