How to remove console statements from React Native apps

For debugging purposes, I often use console.log statements in React Native and Expo applications.

A babel plugin called babel-plugin-transform-remove-console takes care of removing any console statements from the code. This is a great plugin that I like to use, especially before releasing apps in production.

How to use it

Install the plugin as a dev dependency in the project:

yarn add -D babel-plugin-transform-remove-console

Then, add it as a plugin under env.production in the babel.config.js file:

module.exports = function () {
  return {
    // ... other project config such as presets and plugins
    env: {
      production: {
        plugins: ["transform-remove-console"],
      },
    },
  };
};

This will remove any console statements from the code.

Why does it work

React Native uses Babel as a tool to read and parse React and ES6 (or later) syntax into a specific version of JavaScript code that can run in an environment (that doesn’t support newer ES6 or React syntax).