Programmatically request focus

In some user flows, your application needs to explicitly move focus to a specific component. For example, when a user clicks a "Search" button, you might want to automatically place focus into the search input field.

Use FocusRequester

To explicitly request focus:

1. Create and remember a FocusRequester instance: val focusRequester = remember { FocusRequester() }.
2. Attach the FocusRequester to the target composable using the focusRequester modifier.
3. Call requestFocus() inside an event callback (such as onClick) or a coroutine scope.

val focusRequester = remember { FocusRequester() }
var text by remember { mutableStateOf("") }

TextField(
    value = text,
    onValueChange = { text = it },
    modifier = Modifier.focusRequester(focusRequester)
)
FocusSnippets.kt

val focusRequester = remember { FocusRequester() }
var text by remember { mutableStateOf("") }

TextField(
    value = text,
    onValueChange = { text = it },
    modifier = Modifier.focusRequester(focusRequester)
)

Button(onClick = { focusRequester.requestFocus() }) {
    Text("Request focus on TextField")
}
FocusSnippets.kt

Set initial screen focus

To place initial focus on a specific component when a screen first appears, trigger requestFocus() inside a LaunchedEffect(Unit):

LaunchedEffect(Unit) {
    focusRequester.requestFocus()
}

When navigating between containers or returning from another screen, you can also attach focusRestorer() to parent containers to automatically return focus to the last focused child. For more information, see the Restore focus guide.