React hooks - right way to clear timeouts and intervals

Defined return () => { /*code/* } function inside useEffect runs every time useEffect runs (except first render on component mount) and on component unmount (if you don't display component any more).

This is a working way to use and clear timeouts or intervals:

Sandbox example.

import { useState, useEffect } from "react";

const delay = 5;

export default function App() {
  const [show, setShow] = useState(false);

  useEffect(
    () => {
      let timer1 = setTimeout(() => setShow(true), delay * 1000);

      // this will clear Timeout
      // when component unmount like in willComponentUnmount
      // and show will not change to true
      return () => {
        clearTimeout(timer1);
      };
    },
    // useEffect will run only one time with empty []
    // if you pass a value to array,
    // like this - [data]
    // than clearTimeout will run every time
    // this value changes (useEffect re-run)
    []
  );

  return show ? (
    <div>show is true, {delay}seconds passed</div>
  ) : (
    <div>show is false, wait {delay}seconds</div>
  );
}

If you need to clear timeouts or intervals in another component:

Sandbox example.

import { useState, useEffect, useRef } from "react";

const delay = 1;

export default function App() {
  const [counter, setCounter] = useState(0);
  const timer = useRef(null); // we can save timer in useRef and pass it to child

  useEffect(() => {
    // useRef value stored in .current property
    timer.current = setInterval(() => setCounter((v) => v + 1), delay * 1000);

    // clear on component unmount
    return () => {
      clearInterval(timer.current);
    };
  }, []);

  return (
    <div>
      <div>Interval is working, counter is: {counter}</div>
      <Child counter={counter} currentTimer={timer.current} />
    </div>
  );
}

function Child({ counter, currentTimer }) {
  // this will clearInterval in parent component after counter gets to 5
  useEffect(() => {
    if (counter < 5) return;

    clearInterval(currentTimer);
  }, [counter, currentTimer]);

  return null;
}

Article from Dan Abramov.

The problem is you are calling setTimeout outside useEffect, so you are setting a new timeout every time the component is rendered, which will eventually be invoked again and change the state, forcing the component to re-render again, which will set a new timeout, which...

So, as you have already found out, the way to use setTimeout or setInterval with hooks is to wrap them in useEffect, like so:

React.useEffect(() => {
    const timeoutID = window.setTimeout(() => {
        ...
    }, 1000);

    return () => window.clearTimeout(timeoutID );
}, []);

As deps = [], useEffect's callback will only be called once. Then, the callback you return will be called when the component is unmounted.

Anyway, I would encourage you to create your own useTimeout hook so that you can DRY and simplify your code by using setTimeout declaratively, as Dan Abramov suggests for setInterval in Making setInterval Declarative with React Hooks, which is quite similar:

function useTimeout(callback, delay) {
  const timeoutRef = React.useRef();
  const callbackRef = React.useRef(callback);

  // Remember the latest callback:
  //
  // Without this, if you change the callback, when setTimeout kicks in, it
  // will still call your old callback.
  //
  // If you add `callback` to useEffect's deps, it will work fine but the
  // timeout will be reset.

  React.useEffect(() => {
    callbackRef.current = callback;
  }, [callback]);

  // Set up the timeout:

  React.useEffect(() => {
    if (typeof delay === 'number') {
      timeoutRef.current = window.setTimeout(() => callbackRef.current(), delay);

      // Clear timeout if the components is unmounted or the delay changes:
      return () => window.clearTimeout(timeoutRef.current);
    }
  }, [delay]);

  // In case you want to manually clear the timeout from the consuming component...:
  return timeoutRef;
}

const App = () => {
  const [isLoading, setLoading] = React.useState(true);
  const [showLoader, setShowLoader] = React.useState(false);
  
  // Simulate loading some data:
  const fakeNetworkRequest = React.useCallback(() => {
    setLoading(true);
    setShowLoader(false);
    
    // 50% of the time it will display the loder, and 50% of the time it won't:
    window.setTimeout(() => setLoading(false), Math.random() * 4000);
  }, []);
  
  // Initial data load:
  React.useEffect(fakeNetworkRequest, []);
        
  // After 2 second, we want to show a loader:
  useTimeout(() => setShowLoader(true), isLoading ? 2000 : null);

  return (<React.Fragment>
    <button onClick={ fakeNetworkRequest } disabled={ isLoading }>
      { isLoading ? 'LOADING... 📀' : 'LOAD MORE 🚀' }
    </button>
    
    { isLoading && showLoader ? <div className="loader"><span className="loaderIcon">📀</span></div> : null }
    { isLoading ? null : <p>Loaded! ✨</p> }
  </React.Fragment>);
}

ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.querySelector('#app'));

body,
button {
  font-family: monospace;
}

body, p {
  margin: 0;
}

#app {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  align-items: center;
  min-height: 100vh;
}

button {
  margin: 32px 0;
  padding: 8px;
  border: 2px solid black;
  background: transparent;
  cursor: pointer;
  border-radius: 2px;
}

.loader {
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100vh;
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
  font-size: 128px;
  background: white;
}

.loaderIcon {
  animation: spin linear infinite .25s;
}

@keyframes spin {
  from { transform:rotate(0deg) }
  to { transform:rotate(360deg) }
}

<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/umd/react.development.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/umd/react-dom.development.js"></script>

<div id="app"></div>

Apart from producing simpler and cleaner code, this allows you to automatically clear the timeout by passing delay = null and also returns the timeout ID, in case you want to cancel it yourself manually (that's not covered in Dan's posts).

If you are looking for a similar answer for setInterval rather than setTimeout, check this out: https://stackoverflow.com/a/59274004/3723993.

You can also find declarative version of setTimeout and setInterval, useTimeout and useInterval, a few additional hooks written in TypeScript in https://www.npmjs.com/package/@swyg/corre.

Your computer was lagging because you probably forgot to pass in the empty array as the second argument of useEffect and was triggering a setState within the callback. That causes an infinite loop because useEffect is triggered on renders.

Here's a working way to set a timer on mount and clearing it on unmount:

function App() {
  React.useEffect(() => {
    const timer = window.setInterval(() => {
      console.log('1 second has passed');
    }, 1000);
    return () => { // Return callback to run on unmount.
      window.clearInterval(timer);
    };
  }, []); // Pass in empty array to run useEffect only on mount.

  return (
    <div>
      Timer Example
    </div>
  );
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <div>
    <App />
  </div>,
  document.querySelector("#app")
);

<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/umd/react.development.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/umd/react-dom.development.js"></script>

<div id="app"></div>