Navbar

Brand

The .navbar-brand can be applied to most elements, but an anchor works best, as some elements might require utility classes or custom styles.

Text

Add your text within an element with the .navbar-brand class.

Image

You can replace the text within the .navbar-brand with an <img>.

Image and text

You can also make use of some additional utilities to add an image and text at the same time. Note the addition of .d-inline-block and .align-text-top on the <img>.

Nav

Navbar navigation links build on our .nav options with their own modifier class and require the use of toggler classes for proper responsive styling. Navigation in navbars will also grow to occupy as much horizontal space as possible to keep your navbar contents securely aligned.

Add the .active class on .nav-link to indicate the current page.

Please note that you should also add the aria-current attribute on the active .nav-link.

And because we use classes for our navs, you can avoid the list-based approach entirely if you like.

You can also use dropdowns in your navbar. Dropdown menus require a wrapping element for positioning, so be sure to use separate and nested elements for .nav-item and .nav-link as shown below.

Forms

Place various form controls and components within a navbar:

Input groups work, too. If your navbar is an entire form, or mostly a form, you can use the <form> element as the container and save some HTML.

Various buttons are supported as part of these navbar forms, too. This is also a great reminder that vertical alignment utilities can be used to align different sized elements.

Text

Navbars may contain bits of text with the help of .navbar-text. This class adjusts vertical alignment and horizontal spacing for strings of text.

Mix and match with other components and utilities as needed.

Color schemes

Navbar themes are easier than ever thanks to Bootstrap’s combination of Sass and CSS variables. The default is our “light navbar” for use with light background colors, but you can also apply .navbar-dark for dark background colors. Then, customize with .bg-* utilities.

<nav class="navbar navbar-dark bg-dark">
  <!-- Navbar content -->
</nav>

<nav class="navbar navbar-dark bg-primary">
  <!-- Navbar content -->
</nav>

<nav class="navbar" style="background-color: #e3f2fd;">
  <!-- Navbar content -->
</nav>

Containers

Although it’s not required, you can wrap a navbar in a .container to center it on a page–though note that an inner container is still required. Or you can add a container inside the .navbar to only center the contents of a fixed or static top navbar.

Use any of the responsive containers to change how wide the content in your navbar is presented.

Placement

Fixed navbars use position: fixed, meaning they’re pulled from the normal flow of the DOM and may require custom CSS (e.g., padding-top on the <body>) to prevent overlap with other elements.

<nav class="navbar bg-light">
 <div class="container-fluid">
   <a class="navbar-brand font-righteous" href="#">Default</a>
 </div>
</nav>

<nav class="navbar fixed-top bg-light">
 <div class="container-fluid">
   <a class="navbar-brand font-righteous" href="#">Fixed top</a>
 </div>
</nav>

<nav class="navbar fixed-bottom bg-light">
 <div class="container-fluid">
   <a class="navbar-brand font-righteous" href="#">Fixed bottom</a>
 </div>
</nav>

<nav class="navbar sticky-top bg-light">
 <div class="container-fluid">
   <a class="navbar-brand font-righteous" href="#">Sticky top</a>
 </div>
</nav>

<nav class="navbar sticky-bottom bg-light">
 <div class="container-fluid">
   <a class="navbar-brand font-righteous" href="#">Sticky bottom</a>
 </div>
</nav>

Scrolling

Add .navbar-nav-scroll to a .navbar-nav (or other navbar sub-component) to enable vertical scrolling within the toggleable contents of a collapsed navbar. By default, scrolling kicks in at 75vh (or 75% of the viewport height), but you can override that with the local CSS custom property --bs-navbar-height or custom styles. At larger viewports when the navbar is expanded, content will appear as it does in a default navbar.

Please note that this behavior comes with a potential drawback of overflow—when setting overflow-y: auto (required to scroll the content here), overflow-x is the equivalent of auto, which will crop some horizontal content.

Here’s an example navbar using .navbar-nav-scroll with style="--bs-scroll-height: 100px;", with some extra margin utilities for optimum spacing.

Responsive behaviors

Navbars can use .navbar-toggler, .navbar-collapse, and .navbar-expand{-sm|-md|-lg|-xl|-xxl} classes to determine when their content collapses behind a button. In combination with other utilities, you can easily choose when to show or hide particular elements.

For navbars that never collapse, add the .navbar-expand class on the navbar. For navbars that always collapse, don’t add any .navbar-expand class.

Toggler

Navbar togglers are left-aligned by default, but should they follow a sibling element like a .navbar-brand, they’ll automatically be aligned to the far right. Reversing your markup will reverse the placement of the toggler. Below are examples of different toggle styles.

With no .navbar-brand shown at the smallest breakpoint:

With a brand name shown on the left and toggler on the right:

With a toggler on the left and brand name on the right:

External content

Sometimes you want to use the collapse plugin to trigger a container element for content that structurally sits outside of the .navbar . Because our plugin works on the id and data-bs-target matching, that’s easily done!

Collapsed content

Toggleable via the navbar brand.

When you do this, we recommend including additional JavaScript to move the focus programmatically to the container when it is opened. Otherwise, keyboard users and users of assistive technologies will likely have a hard time finding the newly revealed content - particularly if the container that was opened comes before the toggler in the document’s structure. We also recommend making sure that the toggler has the aria-controls attribute, pointing to the id of the content container. In theory, this allows assistive technology users to jump directly from the toggler to the container it controls–but support for this is currently quite patchy.

Offcanvas

Transform your expanding and collapsing navbar into an offcanvas drawer with the [offcanvas component]({{< docsref “/components/offcanvas” >}}). We extend both the offcanvas default styles and use our .navbar-expand-* classes to create a dynamic and flexible navigation sidebar.

In the example below, to create an offcanvas navbar that is always collapsed across all breakpoints, omit the .navbar-expand-* class entirely.

To create an offcanvas navbar that expands into a normal navbar at a specific breakpoint like lg, use .navbar-expand-lg.

<nav class="navbar navbar-expand-lg bg-light">
  <a class="navbar-brand" href="#">Offcanvas navbar</a>
  <button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-bs-toggle="offcanvas" data-bs-target="#navbarOffcanvasLg" aria-controls="navbarOffcanvasLg">
    <span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
  </button>
  <div class="offcanvas offcanvas-end" tabindex="-1" id="navbarOffcanvasLg" aria-labelledby="navbarOffcanvasLgLabel">
    ...
  </div>
</nav>

When using offcanvas in a dark navbar, be aware that you may need to have a dark background on the offcanvas content to avoid the text becoming illegible. In the example below, we add .navbar-dark and .bg-dark to the .navbar, .text-bg-dark to the .offcanvas, .dropdown-menu-dark to .dropdown-menu, and .btn-close-white to .btn-close for proper styling with a dark offcanvas.