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Angular Enter and Leave Animations: A Practical Guide

Use Angular’s animate.enter and animate.leave APIs for CSS-based or programmatic DOM entry and exit animations, with important callback and component-boundary behavior explained.
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Use Angular’s compiler-supported animate.enter and animate.leave APIs to animate elements as they are added to or removed from the DOM. For straightforward motion, attach CSS classes; for animations controlled by application code or a JavaScript library, handle the animation event and explicitly tell Angular when a leave animation is finished.

These APIs were introduced in Angular v20.2, when the older @angular/animations package was deprecated. Angular recommends the native CSS approach for new code. Angular’s legacy animations overview and its migration guide explain the recommendation and migration context.

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How Angular enter and leave animations work

animate.enter and animate.leave are compiler-supported APIs, not directives. You can use them on elements or as host bindings. Angular applies the CSS class specified for an animation and manages the element’s lifecycle around the animation.

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  • For an enter animation, Angular removes the applied class after the animation completes.
  • For a leave animation, Angular keeps the element in the DOM until the animation completes, then removes it.
  • If multiple animations or transition properties apply, Angular waits for the longest one.

See Angular’s Enter and Leave animations guide for the supported behavior and details.

Add an enter animation with CSS

Conditionally render the element, then attach an enter class to it:

@if (isShown()) {
  <div animate.enter="fade-in">Content</div>
}

Define fade-in in the component stylesheet using a CSS animation or transition. Angular applies the class when the element enters and removes it once the animation is done. This suits effects such as fading, sliding, or scaling an element into view without coordinating animation in application code.

Keep an element in the DOM while it leaves

Attach animate.leave to the element whose removal is triggered:

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@if (isShown()) {
  <div animate.leave="fade-out">Content</div>
}

When isShown() becomes false, Angular starts the leave animation and delays removing the element until the CSS animation or transition finishes. Put the leave behavior on the element that is actually being removed; styling a surrounding element does not by itself animate a different element’s removal.

Use a callback for programmatic animations

If application code or a JavaScript animation library controls the motion, bind to the leave event and call animationComplete() when the animation finishes:

<div (animate.leave)="leavingFn($event)">Content</div>
leavingFn(event: AnimationCallbackEvent) {
  // Start the animation, then signal when it has finished:
  event.animationComplete();
}

The callback event provides the target element and the animationComplete() method. In real code, call that method from the animation’s completion handler, not immediately after starting an asynchronous animation. If the handler never reports completion, Angular completes it automatically after four seconds by default. You can change this timeout with MAX_ANIMATION_TIMEOUT. The callback and timeout behavior is documented in Angular’s animation guide.

Choose CSS classes or callbacks

Approach Best fit What to manage
CSS class with animate.enter or animate.leave Motion expressible as CSS transitions or keyframes. Define the class and CSS animation; Angular tracks its completion.
Event binding with application code or a JavaScript library Motion that needs programmatic control or asynchronous work before removal. For leave animations, call event.animationComplete() after the motion finishes.

The key decision is whether CSS can express the effect and its timing. Use a callback when code must control the animation or decide when a leaving element is safe to remove. If sequencing spans component-template boundaries, account for Angular’s component behavior before choosing either approach.

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Handle nested elements and component boundaries

When a parent and its animated descendants are in the same component template, Angular lets descendant leave animations finish before removing the parent. This allows a child’s exit effect to complete as part of the same removal.

A child component’s own template is a separate boundary: its leave animation does not run before its parent removes the child component. To animate that removal, put the leave behavior on the child component’s host in the parent template, or make the parent’s removal wait for child completion in code. Angular describes this limitation in its Enter and Leave animations guide.

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Migrate from legacy Angular animations carefully

The older @angular/animations system was deprecated as of Angular v20.2, which introduced animate.enter and animate.leave. The new APIs can use CSS or JavaScript animation libraries, but migration is not only a syntax change: the legacy system includes choreography tools that do not map directly to the new model.

  • Keep the systems separate by component. Legacy triggers and animate.enter/animate.leave must not be combined in the same component. They can coexist in separate components, but projecting content between components that use different systems is unsupported.
  • Rework sequencing. Legacy animations provide query, stagger, group, and sequence facilities. With the new model, no animation takes priority over another; define sequencing with CSS animation or transition delays and, where needed, end events.
  • Rework nested-component choreography. Legacy parent triggers could query nested components and invoke their animations. CSS enter/leave animations in a nested child component’s template do not fire when a parent removes that view.

For the precise migration scope, consult Angular’s Migrating to Native CSS Animations guide. The older trigger model’s :enter and :leave aliases refer to transitions between void and an element state; they are legacy syntax, not replacements for the current APIs. See Transition and Triggers and Complex Sequences for those legacy concepts.

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