Building Streamlit Multipage Apps

Streamlit multi-page apps

Structure and navigation for apps with multiple pages.

Directory structure

streamlit_app.py          # Main entry point
app_pages/
    home.py
    analytics.py
    settings.py

Important: Name your pages directory app_pages/ (not pages/). Using pages/ conflicts with Streamlit's old auto-discovery API and can cause unexpected behavior.

Main module

# streamlit_app.py
import streamlit as st

# Initialize global state (shared across pages)
if "api_client" not in st.session_state:
    st.session_state.api_client = init_api_client()

# Define navigation
page = st.navigation([
    st.Page("app_pages/home.py", title="Home", icon=":material/home:"),
    st.Page("app_pages/analytics.py", title="Analytics", icon=":material/bar_chart:"),
    st.Page("app_pages/settings.py", title="Settings", icon=":material/settings:"),
])

# App-level UI runs before page content
# Useful for shared elements like titles
st.title(f"{page.icon} {page.title}")

page.run()

Note: When you handle titles in streamlit_app.py, individual pages should NOT use st.title again.

Navigation position

Few pages (3-7) → Top navigation:

page = st.navigation([...], position="top")

Creates a clean horizontal menu. Great for simple apps. Sections are supported too—they appear as dropdowns in the top nav.

Many pages or nested sections → Sidebar:

page = st.navigation({
    "Main": [
        st.Page("app_pages/home.py", title="Home"),
        st.Page("app_pages/analytics.py", title="Analytics"),
    ],
    "Admin": [
        st.Page("app_pages/settings.py", title="Settings"),
        st.Page("app_pages/users.py", title="Users"),
    ],
}, position="sidebar")

Mixed: Some pages ungrouped:

Use an empty string key "" for pages that shouldn't be in a section. These ungrouped pages always appear first, before any named groups. Put all ungrouped pages in a single "" key:

page = st.navigation({
    "": [
        st.Page("app_pages/home.py", title="Home"),
        st.Page("app_pages/about.py", title="About"),
    ],
    "Analytics": [
        st.Page("app_pages/dashboard.py", title="Dashboard"),
        st.Page("app_pages/reports.py", title="Reports"),
    ],
}, position="top")

Page modules

# app_pages/analytics.py
import streamlit as st

# Access global state
api = st.session_state.api_client
user = st.session_state.user

# Page-specific content (title is handled in streamlit_app.py)
data = api.fetch_analytics(user.id)
st.line_chart(data)

Global state

Initialize state in the main module only if it's needed across multiple pages:

# streamlit_app.py
st.session_state.api = init_client()
st.session_state.user = get_user()
st.session_state.settings = load_settings()

Tip: Use st.session_state.setdefault("key", default_value) to initialize values only if they don't exist.

Why main module (for global state):

• Runs before every page
• Ensures state is initialized
• Single source of truth

Page-specific state

Use prefixed keys for page-specific state:

# app_pages/analytics.py
if "analytics_date_range" not in st.session_state:
    st.session_state.analytics_date_range = default_range()

Share elements between pages

Put shared UI in the entrypoint (before page.run()) so it appears on all pages:

# streamlit_app.py
import streamlit as st

pages = [...]
page = st.navigation(pages)

# Shared title
st.title(f"{page.icon} {page.title}")

# Shared sidebar widgets
with st.sidebar:
    st.selectbox("Theme", ["Light", "Dark"])

page.run()

Programmatic navigation

Navigate to another page programmatically:

if st.button("Go to Settings"):
    st.switch_page("app_pages/settings.py")

Create navigation links with st.page_link:

st.page_link("app_pages/home.py", label="Home", icon=":material/home:")
st.page_link("https://example.com", label="External", icon=":material/open_in_new:")

Note: Prefer st.navigation over st.page_link for standard navigation. Do not use st.page_link to recreate the nav bar you get with st.navigation. Only use st.page_link when linking to pages from somewhere other than the sidebar, or when building a more complex navigation menu.

Conditional pages

Show different pages based on user role, authentication, or any other condition by building the pages list dynamically:

# streamlit_app.py
import streamlit as st

pages = [st.Page("app_pages/home.py", title="Home", icon=":material/home:")]

if st.user.is_logged_in:
    pages.append(st.Page("app_pages/dashboard.py", title="Dashboard", icon=":material/bar_chart:"))

if st.session_state.get("is_admin"):
    pages.append(st.Page("app_pages/admin.py", title="Admin", icon=":material/settings:"))

page = st.navigation(pages)
page.run()

Common conditions for showing/hiding pages:

• st.user.is_logged_in for authenticated users
• st.session_state flags (roles, permissions, feature flags)
• Environment variables or secrets
• Time-based access (e.g., beta features)

Imports from pages

When importing from page files in app_pages/, always import from the root directory perspective:

# app_pages/dashboard.py - GOOD
from utils.data import load_sales_data

# app_pages/dashboard.py - BAD (don't use relative imports)
from ..utils.data import load_sales_data

References

• Multipage apps docs
• st.navigation
• st.Page
• st.session_state
• st.switch_page
• st.page_link

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