Angular Material tabs organize content into separate views where only one view can be visible at a time. Each tab's label is shown in the tab header and the active tab's label is designated with the animated ink bar. When the list of tab labels exceeds the width of the header, pagination controls appear to let the user scroll left and right across the labels.

The active tab may be set using the selectedIndex input or when the user selects one of the tab labels in the header.

The selectedTabChange output event is emitted when the active tab changes.

The focusChange output event is emitted when the user puts focus on any of the tab labels in the header, usually through keyboard navigation.

If a tab's label is only text then the simple tab-group API can be used.

For more complex labels, add a template with the mat-tab-label directive inside the mat-tab.

By default, the tab group will not change its height to the height of the currently active tab. To change this, set the dynamicHeight input to true. The tab body will animate its height according to the height of the active tab.

While <mat-tab-group> is used to switch between views within a single route, <nav mat-tab-nav-bar> provides a tab-like UI for navigating between routes.

The tab-nav-bar is not tied to any particular router; it works with normal <a> elements and uses the active property to determine which tab is currently active. The corresponding <router-outlet> can be placed anywhere in the view.

By default, the tab contents are eagerly loaded. Eagerly loaded tabs will initalize the child components but not inject them into the DOM until the tab is activated.

If the tab contains several complex child components or the tab's contents rely on DOM calculations during initialization, it is advised to lazy load the tab's content.

Tab contents can be lazy loaded by declaring the body in a ng-template with the matTabContent attribute.

If you want to align the tab labels in the center or towards the end of the container, you can do so using the [mat-align-tabs] attribute.

You can control the duration of the tabs' animation using the animationDuration input. If you want to disable the animation completely, you can do so by setting the properties to 0ms. The duration can be configured globally using the MAT_TABS_CONFIG injection token.

MatTabGroup and MatTabNavBar implement different interaction patterns for different use-cases. You should choose the component that works best for your application.

MatTabGroup combines tablist, tab, and tabpanel into a single component with handling for keyboard inputs and focus management. You should use this component for switching between content within a single page.

MatTabNavBar, implements a navigation interaction pattern by using a <nav> element with anchor elements as the "tabs". You should use this component when you want your cross-page navigation to look like a tabbed interface. As a rule of thumb, you should consider MatTabNavBar if changing tabs would change the browser URL. For all navigation, including with MatTabNavBar, always move browser focus to an element at the beginning of the content to which the user is navgating. Furthermore, consider placing your <router-outlet> inside of a landmark region appropriate to the page.

Avoid mixing both MatTabGroup and MatTabNavBar in your application. The inconsistent interaction patterns applied between the components may confuse users.

Always provide an accessible label via aria-label or aria-describedby for tabs without descriptive text content.

When using MatTabNavGroup, always specify a label for the <nav> element.

MatTabGroup implements the following keyboard interactions.

Shortcut Action
LEFT_ARROW Move focus to previous tab
RIGHT_ARROW Move focus to next tab
HOME Move focus to first tab
END Move focus to last tab
SPACE or ENTER Switch to focused tab

MatTabNavBar does not add additional keyboard handling, deferring to the native behavior of anchor elements.