Understanding Route Groups in Next.js

Aug 04, 2023

Next.js offers a powerful feature known as Route Groups that can significantly enhance the organization and structure of your application's routes. In this blog post, we'll delve deep into the concept of Route Groups, their benefits, and how to effectively use them in your Next.js projects.

What are Route Groups?

In a typical Next.js application, nested folders within the app directory are directly mapped to URL paths. However, there might be instances where you'd want to group certain routes together without reflecting this grouping in the URL. This is where Route Groups come into play.

By marking a folder as a Route Group, you can prevent its name from being included in the route's URL path. This provides a neat way to organize your route segments and project files into logical groups without altering the URL path structure.

Why Use Route Groups?

Route Groups can be particularly beneficial for:

Organizational Purposes: Group routes by site section, intent, or even by teams working on different parts of the application.
Nested Layouts: They allow for nested layouts at the same route segment level. This includes creating multiple nested layouts within the same segment or adding a specific layout to a subset of routes in a common segment.

Convention

Creating a route group is straightforward. Simply wrap the folder's name in parentheses, like so: (folderName).

Examples of Using Route Groups

Organizing Routes without Affecting the URL Path:
If you wish to keep related routes together without changing the URL, you can create a group. For instance, folders named (marketing) or (shop) will be excluded from the URL. Despite routes inside (marketing) and (shop) sharing the same URL hierarchy, distinct layouts can be set for each group by adding a layout.js file within their respective folders.
Opting Specific Segments into a Layout:
To assign a specific layout to certain routes, initiate a new route group, for example, (shop), and transfer the routes with the shared layout into this group, like account and cart. Routes outside this group, such as checkout, won't share this layout.
Creating Multiple Root Layouts:
If you're aiming to partition your application into sections with entirely different UIs or experiences, you can create multiple root layouts. To do this, eliminate the top-level layout.js file and introduce a layout.js file within each route group. Remember to include the <html> and <body> tags in each root layout. In such a setup, both (marketing) and (shop) would have distinct root layouts.

Important Points to Remember

The naming convention for route groups is solely for organizational purposes and doesn't influence the URL path.
Routes within a route group shouldn't resolve to the same URL path as other routes. For instance, (marketing)/about/page.js and (shop)/about/page.js would both point to /about, leading to an error.
If you're using multiple root layouts without a top-level layout.js file, ensure your home page.js file is defined within one of the route groups, like app/(marketing)/page.js.
Transitioning between multiple root layouts will trigger a full page load. For instance, moving from /cart (using app/(shop)/layout.js) to /blog (using app/(marketing)/layout.js) will result in a full page load. This is specific to multiple root layouts.

In conclusion, Route Groups in Next.js offer a flexible and efficient way to structure and organize your routes. By understanding and leveraging this feature, you can enhance the clarity and maintainability of your Next.js applications.

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