Respect reduced motion preference for Lottie animations by MelvinBot · Pull Request #83522 · Expensify/App

MelvinBot · 2026-02-26T02:37:26Z

Explanation of Change

When the OS-level reduced motion accessibility setting is enabled (e.g., prefers-reduced-motion on web, or the native Reduce Motion setting on iOS/Android), Lottie animations throughout the app now stop playing. This addresses WCAG 2.2.2 (Pause, Stop, Hide) by respecting the system preference.

The fix is entirely in the shared Lottie component:

Uses useReducedMotion() from react-native-reanimated (already a dependency, already used in AnimatedEmptyStateBackground.tsx)
When reduced motion is enabled, overrides autoPlay to false and loop to false
Prevents the navigation focus handler from re-starting the animation

This single change automatically applies to all 12+ call sites (SignInHeroImage, Section, EmptyStateComponent, IllustratedHeaderPageLayout, BlockingView, ConfirmationPage, FeatureTrainingModal, etc.) without modifying any of them.

Fixed Issues

$ #76915
PROPOSAL: #76915 (comment)

Tests

On macOS/Windows, enable reduced motion in system accessibility settings (macOS: System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Reduce motion; Windows: Settings > Accessibility > Visual effects > Animation effects OFF)
Open the sign-in page and verify the Hands animation is NOT playing
Navigate to Settings > Troubleshoot, Settings > Save the World, Settings > Preferences, Settings > Security and verify header animations are NOT playing
Navigate to an empty state page (e.g., Reports with no expenses) and verify the animation is NOT playing
Disable the reduced motion setting and refresh the page
Verify all animations resume playing normally with autoPlay and loop behavior

Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

No offline-specific behavior changes. The reduced motion detection is a client-side OS setting, unrelated to network state.

QA Steps

Enable reduced motion in the OS accessibility settings
Navigate through pages with Lottie animations (sign-in page, settings pages, empty states)
Verify animations are not playing when reduced motion is enabled
Disable reduced motion and verify animations play normally

Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

PR Author Checklist

Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

Android: mWeb Chrome

iOS: Native

iOS: mWeb Safari

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

When the OS-level reduced motion accessibility setting is enabled, Lottie animations now stop playing. This is done by overriding autoPlay and loop to false in the shared Lottie component, and skipping the play() call on navigation focus. Co-authored-by: Rushat Gabhane <rushatgabhane@users.noreply.github.com>

rushatgabhane · 2026-02-26T02:42:25Z

@aimane-chnaif all yours!

codecov · 2026-02-26T02:58:02Z

Codecov Report

✅ Changes either increased or maintained existing code coverage, great job!

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
src/components/Lottie/index.tsx	`71.18% <60.00%> (+0.27%)`	⬆️
... and 10 files with indirect coverage changes

aimane-chnaif · 2026-02-26T07:44:30Z

@MelvinBot mark this as ready for review

aimane-chnaif · 2026-02-26T07:45:51Z

Reviewer Checklist

I have verified the author checklist is complete (all boxes are checked off).
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- I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
I checked that screenshots or videos are included for tests on all platforms
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I verified tests pass on all platforms & I tested again on:
- Android: HybridApp
- Android: mWeb Chrome
- iOS: HybridApp
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If there are any errors in the console that are unrelated to this PR, I either fixed them (preferred) or linked to where I reported them in Slack
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If any new file was added I verified that:
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If the PR modifies code that runs when editing or sending messages, I tested and verified there is no unexpected behavior for all supported markdown - URLs, single line code, code blocks, quotes, headings, bold, strikethrough, and italic.
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I have checked off every checkbox in the PR reviewer checklist, including those that don't apply to this PR.

Screenshots/Videos

Android: HybridApp

Android: mWeb Chrome

iOS: HybridApp

iOS: mWeb Safari

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

Screen.Recording.2026-02-26.at.7.39.39.am.mov

aimane-chnaif · 2026-02-26T07:45:57Z

@codex review

melvin-bot · 2026-02-26T07:46:06Z

@dubielzyk-expensify @aimane-chnaif One of you needs to copy/paste the Reviewer Checklist from here into a new comment on this PR and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]

MelvinBot · 2026-02-26T07:46:08Z

Done! PR has been marked as ready for review. 🤖

melvin-bot · 2026-02-26T07:48:09Z

We did not find an internal engineer to review this PR, trying to assign a random engineer to #76915 as well as to this PR... Please reach out for help on Slack if no one gets assigned!

dubielzyk-expensify · 2026-02-26T08:04:02Z

Lovely. I think there's an argument to be made that we should swap out the illustration for an image here. Is it possible to decide where to pause the animation?

aimane-chnaif · 2026-02-26T08:19:06Z

yes we can pause the animation at some point but there's no direct prop like "duration" to pause/stop animation. We will need to add setTimeout.
And as animations vary, should we decide stop timestamp individually for all lottie animations case-by-case, which makes more complex?

dubielzyk-expensify · 2026-02-26T09:45:58Z

That's fine then. Let's get this out into the product and leave it as is. It's mostly a key thing to turn off the animation and respect a11y system settings

JmillsExpensify

No product review required on this one.

rushatgabhane · 2026-02-26T12:38:05Z

thanks for the review @aimane-chnaif

chuckdries

I think long term it's not a bad idea to define a fallback image (or maybe just a timestamp?) on a per-animation bases, but yeah big agree let's merge this ASAP!

github-actions · 2026-02-27T16:14:52Z

🚧 @chuckdries has triggered a test Expensify/App build. You can view the workflow run here.

github-actions · 2026-02-27T16:19:02Z

🧪🧪 Use the links below to test this adhoc build on Android, iOS, and Web. Happy testing! 🧪🧪
Built from App PR #83522.

Android 🤖	iOS 🍎
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OSBotify · 2026-02-27T16:23:59Z

✋ This PR was not deployed to staging yet because QA is ongoing. It will be automatically deployed to staging after the next production release.

OSBotify · 2026-03-02T23:03:32Z

🚀 Deployed to staging by https://github.com/chuckdries in version: 9.3.28-0 🚀

platform	result
🕸 web 🕸	success ✅
🤖 android 🤖	success ✅
🍎 iOS 🍎	success ✅

OSBotify · 2026-03-04T03:18:20Z

🚀 Deployed to staging by https://github.com/chuckdries in version: 9.3.30-0 🚀

platform	result
🕸 web 🕸	success ✅
🤖 android 🤖	success ✅
🍎 iOS 🍎	success ✅

OSBotify · 2026-03-04T18:08:41Z

🚀 Deployed to production by https://github.com/blimpich in version: 9.3.30-3 🚀

platform	result
🕸 web 🕸	success ✅
🤖 android 🤖	success ✅
🍎 iOS 🍎	success ✅

MelvinBot assigned rushatgabhane Feb 26, 2026

MelvinBot requested a review from a team February 26, 2026 02:37

MelvinBot mentioned this pull request Feb 26, 2026

[Due for payment 2026-03-11] [$125] Animation: Many Pages: The moving animation cannot be stopped or paused #76915

Open

rushatgabhane assigned aimane-chnaif and unassigned rushatgabhane Feb 26, 2026

MelvinBot marked this pull request as ready for review February 26, 2026 07:45

MelvinBot requested a review from a team as a code owner February 26, 2026 07:46

melvin-bot bot requested review from JmillsExpensify, aimane-chnaif and dubielzyk-expensify and removed request for a team February 26, 2026 07:46

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aimane-chnaif approved these changes Feb 26, 2026

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melvin-bot bot requested a review from chuckdries February 26, 2026 07:48

JmillsExpensify reviewed Feb 26, 2026

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chuckdries approved these changes Feb 27, 2026

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chuckdries merged commit e2ae973 into main Feb 27, 2026
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chuckdries deleted the claude-respectReducedMotionForLottie branch February 27, 2026 16:14

OSBotify mentioned this pull request Mar 2, 2026

Deploy Checklist: New Expensify 2026-03-02 #83947

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MelvinBot mentioned this pull request Mar 12, 2026

[Due for payment 2026-03-30] [$250] Animation: Many Pages: The displayed animation cannot be stopped or paused #77157

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MelvinBot commented Feb 26, 2026

Explanation of Change

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