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Error: Importing a component that needs useState. It only works in a Client Component, but none of its parents are marked with use client, so they're Server Components by default.

Shivan M.

The Problem

When using useState in a component in Next.js 13, you might encounter the following error:

You're importing a component that needs useState. It only works in a Client Component, but none of its parents are marked with "use client", so they're Server Components by default.

This error occurs when using the app directory. By default, in Next.js 13, components are marked as Server Components. This means that the HTML is compiled on the server and sent to the client. Server Components shouldn’t contain any code that uses browser-specific APIs, or hooks that are specifically intended for client-side usage (like useState).

The Solution

To resolve this error, you can use the use client directive to mark components as Client Components.

The component below would result in the error in question:

import { useState } from "react";

export default function MyComponent() {
  const [state, setState] = useState("");
  return <></>;
}

By adding the use client directive, we resolve the error:

"use client";

import { useState } from "react";

export default function MyComponent() {
  const [state, setState] = useState("");

  return <></>;
}

If you want to use a component marked as a Client Component in a Server Component (for example, a third-party library), export the component from the lib folder at the same level as the app directory.

// lib/third-party-component.js
"use client";

export * from "@some/library";

Then, in your Server Component:

import { Component } from "../lib/third-party-component";

export default function Page() {
     return (
         // use your component
     )
}

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