toast_overlay

An animated, themeable overlay toast for Flutter — with an auto-dismiss countdown ring, and an optional support reference id the user can copy.

Unlike a SnackBar, it renders into the root Overlay, so it shows above dialogs and bottom sheets and survives route changes. It has no dependency on your app's theme, assets or localisations — you inject those.

Three stacked at the top	One anchored to the bottom	A reference id, with a subtitle above it

Install

flutter pub add toast_overlay

Or add it to pubspec.yaml yourself — it is a runtime dependency:

dependencies:
  toast_overlay: ^1.2.0

then:

flutter pub get

Requires package:material_ui

Since 1.0.0 this package builds on material_ui, the standalone Material library, rather than package:flutter/material.dart. The two declare separate types, so your app has to be on material_ui as well — otherwise ToastTheme cannot be registered in your ThemeData.

If your app still imports package:flutter/material.dart, migrate it with Flutter's own fix:

dart fix --apply --code=migrate_design_widgets

Staying on package:flutter/material.dart for now? Use toast_overlay: ^0.3.0.

It needs Flutter 3.44 or newer (Dart 3.12), which is material_ui's own floor.

Use

Initialise once with your root navigator key:

final navigatorKey = GlobalKey<NavigatorState>();

MaterialApp(navigatorKey: navigatorKey, /* … */);

Toast.init(navigatorKey: navigatorKey);

Then, from anywhere:

Toast.show(
  status: ToastStatus.success,
  title: 'Order placed',
  subtitle: 'Your position is now open.',
);

Parameter	Default	Meaning
status	—	error, success, info, warning
title	—	Falls back to the status default when empty
subtitle	null	Secondary line, up to 3 lines
referenceId	null	Shown with a copy button; disables auto-dismiss
action	null	A ToastAction button under the text — Undo, Retry
onTap	null	Called when the card body is tapped; dismisses after
position	top	top or bottom
offset	kToolbarHeight	Distance from the anchored edge
duration	3s	null keeps it up until dismissed
dismissible	true	Whether a swipe towards the edge dismisses
pauseOnHover	true	Whether a hovering pointer pauses the countdown

Toast.show returns the toast's id, which Toast.dismissToast takes to remove that one toast with its exit animation:

final id = Toast.show(status: ToastStatus.info, title: 'Uploading…', duration: null);
await upload();
Toast.dismissToast(id);

Toast.dismissAll() animates every toast out; Toast.dismiss() cuts them immediately, without the exit animation.

Actions and taps

Give a toast a button, and the toast dismisses itself once it is pressed:

Toast.show(
  status: ToastStatus.info,
  title: 'Order cancelled',
  action: ToastAction(
    label: 'Undo',                 // supply it already localised
    onPressed: restoreOrder,
    dismissOnPressed: true,        // false keeps the toast up
  ),
);

onTap makes the whole card tappable — for a toast that opens the thing it is about. The close and copy buttons keep working; they win the gesture arena.

Dismissing

Beyond the close button, a toast is dismissed by a swipe towards its anchored edge — up for a top toast, down for a bottom one. A drag past 40% of the card's height, or a flick, sends it away; anything less springs back. Dragging the other way does nothing, so it never fights a scroll underneath. Set dismissible: false to pin a toast to the close button alone.

On desktop and web a pointer resting on the card pauses the countdown and resumes it on the way out, so a toast does not vanish mid-sentence. A touch pointer never hovers, so pauseOnHover costs nothing on mobile.

Stacking

By default each toast replaces the one on screen. Raise maxStack and they stack against their edge instead — the oldest drops off once the limit is hit:

Toast.init(
  navigatorKey: navigatorKey,
  maxStack: 3,      // 1 (the default) replaces instead of stacking
  stackSpacing: 8,  // gap between two cards
);

Top-anchored and bottom-anchored toasts stack separately, each against its own edge, and only the card nearest the edge keeps its offset.

Reference ids

When something fails you often want to hand the user something to quote to support. Pass a referenceId and the toast renders Ref: <id> with a copy button — and stops auto-dismissing, because a toast that vanishes while you are copying it is useless. It sits under the subtitle when you pass both, and works on any status, not only error.

Toast.show(
  status: ToastStatus.error,
  title: 'Withdrawal failed',
  referenceId: response.traceId,
);

Theming

Register a ToastTheme extension and the toast follows your light and dark themes:

MaterialApp(
  theme: ThemeData(extensions: const [ToastTheme(
    surface: Color(0xFFF7F8FA),
    borderColor: Color(0xFFE5E7EB),
    titleColor: Color(0xFF0A0C12),
    subtitleColor: Color(0xFF6B7280),
    closeIconColor: Color(0xFF9CA3AF),
    statusColors: {
      ToastStatus.success: ToastStatusColors(
        background: Color(0xFFD1FADF),
        foreground: Color(0xFF12B76A),
      ),
      // …
    },
  )]),
);

If you register nothing, it still works — the palette is derived from the ambient ColorScheme.

Corners

cardRadius and iconRadius are BorderRadius, so corners can differ — 12 and 6 all round by default:

ToastTheme(
  // …
  cardRadius: BorderRadius.circular(20),
  iconRadius: const BorderRadius.only(
    topLeft: Radius.circular(16),
    bottomRight: Radius.circular(16),
  ),
);

Pass cardShape or iconShape instead when you want a shape of your own; they override the radii.

Type

fontFamily swaps the typeface on every line. For finer control, titleStyle, subtitleStyle and referenceStyle are used exactly as given — a weight, colour or family you set there is never overwritten:

ToastTheme(
  // …
  fontFamily: 'Inter',
  titleStyle: TextStyle(fontSize: 15, fontWeight: FontWeight.w700),
  subtitleStyle: TextStyle(fontSize: 13, height: 1.3),
  referenceStyle: TextStyle(fontSize: 12, letterSpacing: 0.4),
);

Everything else

ToastTheme also carries shadows, icons, maxWidth, the action button's actionColor and actionStyle, and a glowBuilder for painting a decorative backdrop behind the card:

glowBuilder: (context, status) => DecoratedBox(
  decoration: BoxDecoration(
    gradient: LinearGradient(
      begin: Alignment.centerLeft,
      end: Alignment.centerRight,
      stops: const [0.08, 0.85],
      colors: [tint.withValues(alpha: 0), tint.withValues(alpha: 0.09)],
    ),
  ),
),

Return whatever you like — an Image.asset works too, but a gradient costs no decode, no texture upload and no image cache, which is worth having on a layer that is purely decorative. The glows in the screenshots above ship with the example, not the package — see example/lib/example_toast_theme.dart.

Localisation

The package ships English defaults and takes the rest from you, so it never needs to own your ARB files:

Toast.init(
  navigatorKey: navigatorKey,
  strings: ToastStrings(
    error: l10n.toastTypeError,
    success: l10n.toastTypeSuccess,
    info: l10n.toastTypeInfo,
    warning: l10n.toastTypeWarning,
    referencePrefix: l10n.refPrefix,
    closeLabel: l10n.dismissNotification,
    copyReferenceLabel: l10n.copyReferenceId,
  ),
);

The two labels are the accessibility labels on the close and copy buttons. The close button keeps a 48×48 tap target — it is laid out over the card, so the room costs the toast no height.

Without the global facade

Toast is a convenience wrapper. Inject a ToastController instead if you prefer explicit dependencies — it is what the widget tests use:

final controller = ToastController(
  overlayResolver: () => navigatorKey.currentState?.overlay,
  strings: const ToastStrings(),
  logger: debugPrintToast,
);

controller.show(const ToastConfig(
  status: ToastStatus.info,
  title: 'Hello',
));

overlayResolver returning null makes show a safe no-op, which is what you want before the first route is mounted. The toast is still recorded in history, so nothing is silently lost.

History and logging

The controller keeps the last 20 toasts for a debug screen, and can forward each one to your own logger:

Toast.init(navigatorKey: navigatorKey, logger: myLogger.info);

for (final entry in Toast.history.entries) {
  print(entry); // 14:03:21.881 [error] Withdrawal failed — Please contact support.
}

Accessibility

• The title and subtitle are one live region, so a screen reader reads them as a unit. On platforms that support announcements the toast is also announced when it appears — assertively for an error, politely otherwise — because a toast in an overlay is otherwise easy to miss before it auto-dismisses.
• The close and copy buttons are laid out small but keep a 48dp tap target, and carry the labels from ToastStrings.
• The swipe is excluded from semantics: the close button is the accessible way out, and a drag handler would merge the card into one unusable node.

Behaviour notes

• Showing a toast replaces any toast already on screen, unless maxStack is above 1.
• The card is capped at ToastTheme.maxWidth (520 by default) and centred, so it does not stretch across a desktop window. double.infinity restores the full-width card.
• The countdown ring is only drawn while a toast is auto-dismissing.
• The card is wrapped in a RepaintBoundary and passed as the child of its AnimatedBuilder, so the animation does not rebuild the content.
• The toast respects SafeArea on the edge it is anchored to.

License

MIT