I am toying with material-ui. I implemented LeftNav using routes, but I could not find a way to get IconMenu, or Menu working with links or routes. Anyone can point me to a good source / tutorial? The documentation falls short, and both components seem not to support 'menuItems' as property as LeftNav does.
18 Answers
another long overdue update:
containerElement prop is not supported anymore, use component prop instead.
Check out the document here.
2016 December Edit: the linkButton prop is deprecated, you will get a warning:
Warning: Unknown props `linkButton` on <a> tag.
So simply remove the prop:
<MenuItem
  containerElement={<Link to="/profile" />}
  primaryText="Profile"
  leftIcon={
    <FontIcon className="material-icons">people</FontIcon>
  }
/>
Here's an Example Repo, and the Live Demo Here.
Original answer:
Just wanted to point out that if you're using react-router, you might want to use <Link to="/some/page" /> rather than the <a> tag.
To do this, you need to use the containerElement prop
<MenuItem
  linkButton
  containerElement={<Link to="/profile" />}
  primaryText="Profile"
  leftIcon={
    <FontIcon className="material-icons">people</FontIcon>
  }
/>
(the ={true} can be omitted if you're only passing true,
in other words, <MenuItem linkButton /> is same as <MenuItem linkButton={true} />)
The containerElement and linkButton props is actually documented in the buttons section, but you can use it in MenuItem as well.
 
    
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                    link now broken and cannot see any button link docs anywhere on the site. This might be what I am after so thanks for posting. I am not sure what you mean by te true stuff ? – landed May 16 '16 at 15:16
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                    1Updated, thanks for reminding! (Updated the true stuff too) – DaxChen May 16 '16 at 18:43
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                    I also see the onTouchTap is a way to get an event from interacting with a menu item. – landed May 17 '16 at 13:02
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                    Yeah, but using `onTouchTap`/`onClick` to trigger page change instead of ``/`` you lose some native functions such as the link preview in browser, and the ability for users to open link in a new tab. – DaxChen May 17 '16 at 18:19
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                    This does not work for me, see https://github.com/callemall/material-ui/issues/204#issuecomment-296499846 – daydreamer Apr 24 '17 at 00:24
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                    Not working in 2020 , containerElement no longer supported – leonbloy Jun 12 '20 at 21:33
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                    In 2021 you should use this solution: https://stackoverflow.com/a/49019285/1757878 – piotros Mar 02 '21 at 09:07
Starting with Material-UI 1.0, the new syntax is:
<MenuItem
  component={Link}
  // the 'to' prop (and any other props not recognized by MenuItem itself)
  // will be passed down to the Link component
  to="/profile"
>
  Profile
</MenuItem>
(Note: this example doesn't include an icon. There is a new ListItemIcon component for that.)
 
    
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                    Not a fan of passing down props implicitly, plus it wont work with typescript. Way better to just do this: `component={()=>}` – ICW Apr 18 '22 at 18:33
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                    Maybe I'm doing smth wrong, but ``` const menuItems: MenuItemProps[] = [{id: 'someId', children: 'Go', component={Link}}] ``` and se the error - `Type '{ id: string; onClick: () => void; children: string; component: string; }' is not assignable to type 'MenuItemProps<"li", {}>'. Object literal may only specify known properties, and 'component' does not exist in type 'MenuItemProps<"li", {}>'. `. What's wrong with it? – lazy.lizard Apr 14 '23 at 13:44
You can set the linkButtton prop on MenuItem to generate a link, then also add an href.
<MenuItem linkButton={true} href="link/to/some/page" primaryText="Sample Link" />
 
    
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                    8If this was true, it doesn't seem to be true anymore, unfortunately. – user1175849 Oct 19 '16 at 01:22
None of the existing answers (of September 2018) worked for me with react 16.4.2 and react-router 4.2.2, so this was my solution:
<Link to='/notifications' style={{ textDecoration: 'none' }}>
   <MenuItem>Notifications</MenuItem>
</Link>
As you can see, the MenuItem component is surrounded by the Link component, and I added a style textDecoration: 'none' not to have the item underlined.
 
    
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                    6Thank you. It's amazing that such basic info is missing from https://material-ui.com/components/menus/ – Igor K Oct 29 '19 at 19:30
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                    1This works, but puts the `li` inside the `a`, which semantically makes no sense – DanV Nov 25 '22 at 08:42
As of Sep 2020, only thing that works and is super simple is
<MenuItem component="a" href="/your-path">Click Me</MenuItem>
Bonus: To add icon with a badge:
<MenuItem component="a" href="/your-path">
        <IconButton color="inherit" href="/your-path">
              <Badge badgeContent="12" color="secondary">
                <StarsSharpIcon color="action"/>
              </Badge>
        </IconButton>
Click Me
</MenuItem>
 
    
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The prop linkButton of EnhancedButton is deprecated. LinkButton is no longer required when the href property is provided.
It will be removed with v0.16.0.
<MenuItem onTouchTap={this.handleClose} href="/link/data">Link Item</MenuItem>
Works fine
 
    
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                    this is the best answer as of 11/29/2016 you can also use things like `target="_blank"` to get the link to open in a new browser window – Chris Sprance Nov 29 '16 at 06:42
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                    This is an option but that will reload the whole page, while `Link`'s element doesn't. It's possible instead to simply wrap the `MenuItem`: `````` – keepthepeach Nov 29 '16 at 07:18
Using M-UI 4.x you can set a component prop on MenuItem and to something like
<MenuItem component='a' href='link/to/some/page'>Sample Link</MenuItem>
 
    
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                    @jkschin react is typically used in a single page application manner (SPA), wherein one of the benefits is avoiding full page reloads. – William Jun 11 '21 at 18:00
After doing a little searching myself I went with a slightly different solution:
<MenuItem onClick={() => {handleClose("/#about")}}>About me</MenuItem>
With a supporting JS function:
function handleClose(nav) {
    window.location.href = nav;
}
Hopefully proves of use as an alternative.
 
    
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import Menu from '@material-ui/core/Menu';
import MenuItem from '@material-ui/core/MenuItem';
import { Link } from 'react-router-dom';
<MenuItem component={Link} to='/login'>
       Login
</MenuItem>
That worked for me, September 2021, by using React Router and the Link prop of the MenuItem.
 
    
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This worked for me with the v5
for external links
<MenuItem
    component={"a"}
    href={"https://example.com"}
>Go here</MenuItem>
or internal links
import { MenuItem } from "@mui/material";
import { Link } from "react-router-dom";
<MenuItem
    component={Link}
    to={"/users/2323"}
>Go here</MenuItem>
 
    
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We should use <Link> tag out side of <MenuItem> tag
Error:
     <MenuItem>
        <ListItemText>
            <Link to='/ticket-blotter' style={{ textDecoration: 'none' }}>
                TICKET BLOTTER 
            </Link>
        </ListItemText>
     </MenuItem>
       
Solution:
        <Link to='/ticket-blotter' style={{ textDecoration: 'none' }}>
            <MenuItem>
                <ListItemText>
                    TICKET BLOTTER
                </ListItemText>
            </MenuItem>
        </Link>
 
    
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2023 Answer:
import {Menu, MenuItem, Link} from '@mui/material'
<Menu>
  <MenuItem component={Link} href='/'>Home</MenuItem>
  <MenuItem component={Link} href='/settings/user'>My Settings</MenuItem>
<Menu />
As of writing in 2023 a lot of the answers above have been deprecated, tested using MUI v5.11.6.
Passing in a Link as the component prop of a MenuItem, uses a Link as the root element of that MenuItem. Documentation on additional things you can do with a Link element can be found here
 
    
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                    Cheers! This one works best despite some other solutions also working. It doesn't add any additional styling. – Tajs Feb 15 '23 at 11:32
onTouchTap doesn't work for me I have to use onClick see the example below
  <MenuItem 
    onClick={this.logout}
    containerElement={<Link to="/" />}
    primaryText="Sign out"
    rightIcon={
      <b style={style.rightIcon}>
        <img
          className="menu-img"
          src="img/app/logout.png"
          alt="logout"
        />
      </b>
    }
  />
hope this will help others as well
You can use react-route-dom and MenuItem onClick attribute first import react-router-dom:
import { useHistory } from 'react-router-dom'
then declare a function to handle your onClick within your component:
const navigate = () => history.push('route/to/navigate')
 and then user your MenuItem 
<MenuItem onClick={navigate}>Navigate</MenuItem>
 
    
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Here is my implementation, which looks exactly like what in the material-ui official website. The component you can use include AppBar, Drawer and ListItem. The SelectableList can be implemented as let SelectableList = MakeSelectable(List).
<div>
  <AppBar 
    onLeftIconButtonTouchTap={this.handleLeftIconButtonTouchTap}
    title={title}
    showMenuIconButton={true}
    zDepth={0}
  />
    <Drawer 
      open={this.state.open} 
      docked={true} 
      onRequestChange={(open, reason) => {
        this.setState({open:false})
      }}
    >
      <AppBar title={title} />
      <SelectableList
        value={location.pathname}
        onChange={this.handleRequestChangeList}
       >
        <Subheader>Selectable Contacts</Subheader>
        <ListItem
          value={"link1"}
          primaryText="Link1"
        />
        <ListItem
          value={"link2"}
          primaryText="Link2"
        />
      </SelectableList>
    </Drawer>
 </div>
 
    
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I couldn't make the containerElement work on Safari in iOS with react-router. I'm using 0.17.2 of Material UI and react-router@v3 and here's a work around that worked for me:
  <MenuItem
    onTouchTap={() => {
      this._yourMethod()
      browserHistory.push('/howItWorks')
    }}
    primaryText="Menu Link"
  />
 
    
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This way worked for me
import { useHistory } from 'react-router-dom';
const YourComponentName = () =>{
  
    const history = useHistory();
    const handleRoutes = (path) =>{
       history.push(path)
    }
    
  return(
    <>
      ...
      <MenuItem onClick={()=>handleRoutes('/dashboard')}>Dashboard</MenuItem>
      <MenuItem onClick={()=>handleRoutes('/profile')}>Profile</MenuItem>
      ...
    </>
)
}
 
    
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