A toggle is a switch that has two positions, on and off. It lets you manage the state of content or a view, and it works well on mobile devices because it takes up less space than a checkbox.

Use toggles when you need to change the default setting for something or when you want to let users decide whether a feature is turned on or off. For example, you might use a toggle to let people choose whether or not the app remembers their passwords, or to enable and disable the Airplane Mode function.

When you use a toggle, make sure to provide clear and direct labels and to update the visual design with appropriate animations whenever the toggle’s state changes. Also be mindful of societal and cultural implications when using color to signal states—for instance, red can have negative connotations in some cultures.

A good practice is to deploy toggles strategically and to have a process for pruning old ones when they’re no longer needed. This reduces the amount of idle code in your system and reduces the management overhead for your team. It’s also best to give each toggle a descriptive name so someone on any team can understand what it does, who wrote it, and how long it has been in the codebase. This practice also helps when it comes time to debug the code and provides context if an error occurs. In contrast, it’s more difficult to debug an unnamed toggle that has not been updated for a while.