Dropdown

You might say

When someone hovers over their username, show a dropdown with Settings and Sign out.

Open a compact menu of actions or destinationsA dropdown keeps secondary choices behind a trigger when showing them all would add clutter. Name the trigger clearly and keep the menu short and grouped. A frequent or important action should usually remain visible instead of being hidden.

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Quick checkChoose the best answer

Each project row has Rename, Duplicate, and Archive. How do you avoid a row full of buttons?

Use an inline Dropdown for these related secondary actions, with clear text when openedUse three unlabeled icons per row; people will learn themTreat an action as a form value and save it through a Select

You can say this to an AI Agent

Put Rename, Duplicate, and Archive for each project row in a Dropdown with text labels; keep confirmation before Archive. Open and run reversible actions one by one, confirming the menu targets its current row and is fully keyboard-operable.

Dropdown≠Select

Dropdown opens actions or navigation. Select chooses and saves a form value.

When to use it

Secondary row actions
Account menu
Sort options
A compact set of related commands

When NOT to use it

Hide the main action in a More menu
Put a long, searchable dataset in an action menu
Open the menu from an unlabeled mystery icon
Mix dangerous actions with common choices without separation

Anatomy

A button or text control that opens the menu

A floating menu that closes when someone clicks outside it

An action can have icons and shortcut keys

Group related menu items; separate destructive actions

Variants

Basic

When related actions need to share one entry point

Shortcut

When common actions have keyboard shortcuts

Grouped

The menu contains multiple types of operations and needs to be grouped by category

Typical use cases

More actions

Project files

📄 Homepage-refresh.fig2 hours ago ···

📄 Design-guidelines.mdYesterday ···

Account menu

Workbench 🔔

Sort menu

Unnamed document.md B I

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Weekly Report · Issue 29