I'm experiencing the behaviour outlined below (or see here for a video version). When I navigate programmatically on iPadOS or macOS from a tab that hides the tab bar to another tab, the tab bar remains hidden. The real app has it's entry point in UIKit (i.e. it uses an UITabBarController instead of a SwiftUI TabView) but since the problem is reproducible with a SwiftUI only app, I used one for the sake of simplicity.

import SwiftUI

@main
struct HiddenTabBarTestApp: App {
    @State private var selectedIndex = 0
    
    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            TabView(selection: $selectedIndex) {
                Text("First Tab")
                    .tabItem {
                        Label("1", systemImage: "1.circle")
                    }
                    .tag(0)
                
                NavigationStack {
                    Button("Go to first tab") {
                        selectedIndex = 0
                    }
                    .searchable(text: .constant(""))
                }
                .tabItem {
                    Label("2", systemImage: "2.circle")
                }
                .tag(1)
            }
        }
    }
}

Reproduction:

1. Create a new SwiftUI App with the iOS App template and use the code from above
2. Run the app on iPadOS or macOS
3. Navigate to the second tab
4. Click into the search bar
5. Click the "Go to first tab" button
6. The tab bar is no longer visible

I use Xcode 16.2 with iPadOS 18.2 and macOS 15.3.1.

Is this a bug in the Framework or is it the expected behaviour? If it's the expected behaviour, do you have a good solution/workaround that doesn't require me to end the search programmatically (e.g. by using @Environment(\.dismissSearch)) before navigating to another tab? The goal would be to show the tab bar in the first tab while keeping the search open in the second tab.

Note:
I originally asked this question directly in the Apple Developer Forums but didn't get a response there (see here).

I'm experiencing the behaviour outlined below (or see here for a video version). When I navigate programmatically on iPadOS or macOS from a tab that hides the tab bar to another tab, the tab bar remains hidden. The real app has it's entry point in UIKit (i.e. it uses an UITabBarController instead of a SwiftUI TabView) but since the problem is reproducible with a SwiftUI only app, I used one for the sake of simplicity.

import SwiftUI

@main
struct HiddenTabBarTestApp: App {
    @State private var selectedIndex = 0
    
    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            TabView(selection: $selectedIndex) {
                Text("First Tab")
                    .tabItem {
                        Label("1", systemImage: "1.circle")
                    }
                    .tag(0)
                
                NavigationStack {
                    Button("Go to first tab") {
                        selectedIndex = 0
                    }
                    .searchable(text: .constant(""))
                }
                .tabItem {
                    Label("2", systemImage: "2.circle")
                }
                .tag(1)
            }
        }
    }
}

Reproduction:

1. Create a new SwiftUI App with the iOS App template and use the code from above
2. Run the app on iPadOS or macOS
3. Navigate to the second tab
4. Click into the search bar
5. Click the "Go to first tab" button
6. The tab bar is no longer visible

I use Xcode 16.2 with iPadOS 18.2 and macOS 15.3.1.

Is this a bug in the Framework or is it the expected behaviour? If it's the expected behaviour, do you have a good solution/workaround that doesn't require me to end the search programmatically (e.g. by using @Environment(\.dismissSearch)) before navigating to another tab? The goal would be to show the tab bar in the first tab while keeping the search open in the second tab.

Note:
I originally asked this question directly in the Apple Developer Forums but didn't get a response there (see here).

• ios
• swift
• swiftui
• uikit

• Could not replicate the problem on macOS, all works well for me, on macOS Sequoia 15.4 Beta (24E5238a), using Xcode 16.3 beta 3 (16E5129f). Maybe it was a bug that has been fixed. – workingdog support Ukraine Commented Mar 18 at 22:50
• Can replicate the problem on iPadOS 18.3.2. – workingdog support Ukraine Commented Mar 19 at 0:35
• Thanks for the information! Good to know. – finebel Commented Mar 19 at 18:26

1 Answer 1

It is probably a bug in the iPadOS, try this workaround, works for me, tested on iPadOS 18.3.2.

Add .id(selectedIndex) to your TabView.

       TabView(selection: $selectedIndex) {
         ....
       }
        .id(selectedIndex)  // <--- here

EDIT-1:

From your comment, ...the TabView is rebuild completely from scratch with every tab change..., the View/body is diff (very efficient), and this can occur many times and at any time SwiftUI sees fit, with or without the id.

The search does not end once you change the tab. Here is my test code that shows this:

Example test code:

 
@main
struct HiddenTabBarTestApp: App {
    @State private var selectedIndex = 0
    
    @State private var searcher = ""  // <--- here
    
    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            Text(searcher) // <--- for testing
            
            TabView(selection: $selectedIndex) {
                Text("First Tab")
                    .tabItem {
                        Label("1", systemImage: "1.circle")
                    }
                    .tag(0)
                
                NavigationStack {
                          Button("Go to first tab") {
                              selectedIndex = 0
                          }
                          .searchable(text: $searcher) // <--- here
                }
                .tabItem {
                    Label("2", systemImage: "2.circle")
                }
                .tag(1)
            }
            .id(selectedIndex) // <--- here
        }
    }
}