Stop using @import with Sass | @use and @forward explained

Keep up to date with my Sass course: beyondcss.dev/?O...
The use of @import has been deprecated in Sass for quite a while now, but a lot of people still use it. In this video, I take a quick look at the replacements you should be using instead, @use and @forward. I just scratch the surface in this one, but it should be enough to get you started!
A quick note, if you are using node-sass, it is out of date and @use and @forward, as well as their entire module system, will not work. If you're using the Watch Sass extension in VS Code, there is no way to update it. If you are using npm or yarn, just switch out the install of node-sass for sass instead.
Check out this video for the basics of getting Sass set up using the command line: • Sass with auto-refresh...
Why Sass changed to Dart: sass-lang.com/blog/announcing...
// Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:56 - Watching files for changes
02:00 - @use basics and namespacing
04:46 - important @import and @use difference
07:46 - namespacing
08:38 - @forward with an index file
12:22 - Outro
#sass #scss
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[@XavierSmithXcellence]

Yes, please do an advanced video.

[@luiscolome75]

I'm Xavier, It's just amazing how easy to understand are things like this with your videos. Great Work!

[@invictuz4803]

Freaking fantastic, I couldn't understand what on earth was going on after reading the official docs and a CSS tricks article, but you managed to explain it like I was 5 years old in 5 minutes. Would definitely take your Sass course after this to stay up to date, when registration opens...

[@Pavel-wj7gy]

I agree. SCSS docs are pretty bad as far as explaining things.

[@TheLollercaster]

I don't know it sounds like a pain in the butt to me. Although, I do understand why some people find it important.

[@aqua123670]

yeah it only becomes an overhead for most cases

[@PaxNot]

Totally agree. It seems like just added boilerplate if one isn't suffering from namespace conflicts. Good explanation though, but my team will not see this as a net positive.

[@matteobagni1235]

Well the complications start when using a 3rd party or open source, surely you remove the issue of overnaming, but the import is just an overhead...

[@JeSus-hl6zj]

It reminds me of ES Modules in JS. I really like it, basically because I'm used to the namespacing and organizing files that go together around an index file and export all of their stuff. I think it makes a lot more sense than globally available variables. It's more verbose, but it's less stuff to keep in mind or guess about

[@patrick-dev]

I agree that is an overhead functionality, but you'll definitely find it very useful once u have like, more than 30 SASS files in ur project. You're no longer forced to bring all the files into the main SASS file that is compiled to the public CSS file.

[@jaredmeyer997]

Before I found this video, I was beginning to panic, unable to get @use and @forward to work for me. This was extremely helpful - thank you!!

[@shumit]

Mr. Powell, simply magnificent !! Fantastic explanation !! People like you let us (beginners from not-so-developed economies/countries) move forward in life one step at a time. THANK YOU !!! May you prosper in life !!

[@codeSTACKr]

Great explanation!

[@KevinPowell]

Thanks :D

[@samuelcatlow]

This needs to be included in your weekly round ups. 😁

[@somerandomchannel382]

Um how do you compile your css file when typing in the scss file? :)

[@newnam]

@@somerandomchannel382 You'll have to start with this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYq6l2WjlN6teLM, which explains how to get started with watching your SCSS.

[@mentalmaniac76]

Kevin, thank you so much for continuing to keep us up to date on these types of things. I swear without you I would be left behind in the CSS world. I appreciate all that you do

[@katrinaaponte4787]

Kevin, I just wanted to say thank you for all you do. You've really helped me as I learn design and development. I also really appreciate that you don't edit it out if you make a mistake. You fix it and move on. This helps me to not tear myself down if I make a mistake.

[@user-mg8lh5vi4j]

Finally understood. Impossible to explain it clearer and shorter 🤓 🚀 Thanks Kevin, you're extremely talented to teach whatever you bring into your videos!

[@TheTonym415]

Please do more advanced tutorials about @forward and @use. You teaching style is very easy to follow and accessible!

[@ericschmidt6129]

Kevin, this is just what I needed. I'm coming up to speed with Sass and @use and @forward are some of the first things I needed to learn. Your explanations are very clear and understandable. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@stillready6405]

Finally someone who explains the changes on Sass. I couldn't get it working on my own, knowing the changes, so I just stucked to the @import. Thank you for the video. Time to get used to a new work flow.

[@rahul-thakare]

Stumbled many times on @forward, finally got the clarity. Thanks. 🙏🏼

[@piyushpranjal1837]

Looking forward for the complete scss series

[@zaynalee8910]

Hi Kavin, I'm also a Frontend UI/UX Developer and I enjoyed watching your videos. these are very helpful. Please make more videos on Advanced SCSS practices. Thanks

[@kleberpereira8503]

Your content is simply incredible. I'm a front-end developer here in Brazil and I confess that watching your videos I don't even consider myself a front-end anymore (laughs). I still have a lot to learn. Waiting for more videos like this.

[@ThienPowChong]

your voice and flow of detail is perfect!

[@zariachenshui7386]

Brilliant explanation. Miles better than the official Sass documentation. Grateful and subbed.

[@angelliendo583]

Thank you very much, Kevin! You help us all understand Sass and Css better. Make a video of what's new in Sass, please!

[@MackRichardson]

Great quick intro to @use and @forward. Please do a more advanced video. I would also love to see your strategy for using media queries with SASS. In Vanilla CSS, I used to create multiple stylesheets for each breakpoint. With SASS, my media queries are in my components files and I've found it can get muddled pretty quickly. Thanks for the great videos and keep up the awesome work.

[@tanglesite4461]

Awesome! Finally! I have been using Sass with @use and @forward as a self-taught developer for a while now, and wondered if I had been doing it right!? I am so glad you have done this video. If you could do a video on the "with" keyword, and perhaps how we should architect our projects when using sass like this. Awesome Kevin job. Keep it up!!!! The way sass has built this up. I think it opens Sass up for richer architectures and more extensible and robust use cases. Blocks of CSS kind of act like abstract classes now, we can extend them, hide variables, set up entire libraries of components from the macro to the atomic ... as much as we wish! I think this truly gives sass super powers! Awesome Video!

[@origami_canoe1952]

thank you for being so clear !!!!!!! your teaching style is very easy to grasp

[@stephanpetersen3600]

We have to invest more into the setup, but for the usability we will get the return. Thanks for your great work!

[@TimHerbert509]

Been stuck doing backend for years now and jumping back into front end more prevelantly I realized I'm behind the curve again. Your channel has been invaluable for getting back up to speed on all the updates / changes to CSS/SASS etc... Thanks so much!

[@aninham]

yesss welcome again to frontend! Hope you're enjoying your ride! Im considering doing the other way around but no idea where to start

[@TimHerbert509]

@@aninham I've been a WordPress developer for years and it is an easy one to pick up the backend for. Not near as lucritive as so many other backends. PHP has Laravel, python has django, JS has Node, and it goes on and on. Just dive in and build stuff. Best way to learn!

[@anaisrevellat5692]

Just thank you, all make sense now, I was looking for a clear explanation and guess what, you are the only one to be clear about this topic ! Just perfect

[@samimesopotamia7495]

Excellent explanation and I was really hopeless before I got this video, much thanks and appreciation

[@sikelelankohla1499]

This video was fantastic, I stuggled with this and kept on wondering why I cannot use my syle sheets. I almost gave up thank you very much

[@novanoskillz4151]

Great explanation, please dive deeper into sass

[@thomasmatthews406]

Oh my God, you have saved me from giving up. You are the best my friend, thankyou.

[@francescofaccia]

thanks Kevin, very well explained! How easy hard topics are when you tackle them and explain to us!

[@JordanAF808]

Duuuude, did you read my mind!? I was learning about all this new sass stuff yesterday and here you are!

[@luisalbertovillarortiz7424]

Dunno If you are "the king of CSS", However, there is no way, there is no doubt, You are the best "CSS-SASS Instructor" outside there!!! Thank so much Kevin!!!!

[@craigmillerer]

This is fantastic timing Kevin! I use the same boilerplate project file for my websites that I continually add to. As it has grown, it has a number of reused SASS files. All of which utilise the @import method. I think this is a good time for me to strip back my SASS files and restructure it is in the fashion. Thank you for this explanation! I look @forward to seeing more @use-s of this 😂

[@KarimShalapy]

Definitely need the advanced use and forward video.

[@Furki4_4]

I just started learning sass and many thanks to youtube recommendations for recommending me this video :D Thank you as well Kevin

[@GGdevelopment]

Dude I love your stuff. I have a long list of videos you make on my to watch list. Haha finally got back into front end after a year of be dev. I'm glad I got you 😊

[@ozzyozborne4539]

dear God! I just implement it on my project and it took me the half of the day! its not easy when you have multiple files. thank you Kevin

[@avneet12284]

Amazing clarity. Would be nice to delve deeper into the module system if possible, Kevin. Thank you.

[@ridl27]

I didnt even know that @import has been deprecated lol. Ty

[@andrejtellenow]

definitely interested in more in-depth usage of @use and @forward - that would be awesome. more sass videos in general would be great :)

[@md.redwanhossain8822]

Great. You should make a full playlist on sass. Your explanation level is always top notch.

[@helloredwan]

Love you man....Thanks a lot for helping to get up to date....make us a helpful video with a very helpful sass nodules which can be more faster to code. Like some useful mixin some function. Thanks boss. Have a great time ❤

[@stephen1569]

I’m very interested in this. Please make some in-depth videos on this stuff. Many thanks !!

[@guillermoandradaFSD]

Thank you very much... Please give me more Sass techniques. You explain it so good. It's so clear now. Thank you again...

[@sakshijain6087]

This is very knowledgeable video. Thanks Kevin!

[@chandrakant6283]

What a time to be learning Sass including me. Thanku sir, you're a life saver.

[@TravisHi_YT]

Nice clear video with no fluff, I'll now be swapping my projects over. I feel as though learnsass should put a link to this video in the @import warning on their website.

[@TusharShukladevx]

Great video! I read an article about @use last year and couldn't understand why I should make this switch but your video clarified it nicely. I'd also like to known(even if in brief) what else (or advanced stuff) can we do with @use and @forward. Thanks a lot for this video :)

[@KevinPowell]

Have some things on the way on that :D

[@TusharShukladevx]

@@KevinPowell Great, looking forward to it :)

[@abhishekshukla2745]

Awesome Explanation! Please dive into advanced usage.

[@sumukhakb2701]

Great explanation. Do more videos on showing new sass features

[@juggysingh1470]

great explanation of the new sass fundamentals, you have a new sub

[@somnvm37]

I'm getting into scss and all of that file organisation stuff. And it is actually significantly improves what had. Very cool thing.

[@oussemabrini6237]

Thanks dude ,great explanation,i'm waiting for more advanced video.

[@squ34ky]

I've been using @import for ages... I didn't know about @use

[@KevinPowell]

You're far from the only one :)

[@mohan9285]

Awesome, Thank you Kevin. It made me to think "why I was not looking about new things in Sass/SCSS" !!!. as many stuffs are rapidly changing in this technical world, need to grab those and get benefitted. looking forward for more videos related to SCSS from you :) Cheers.

[@dealloc]

Considering Ruby Sass has been around since 2006 (!), Node Sass since 2011 and Dart Sass 1.0 was released in 2018-I'd consider that to be quite a slow process compared to other software.

[@ShaunLevett]

I was banging my head against the wall getting @forward to work. Cheers Kevin.

[@richarddrawsstuff2728]

Thank you for making this video. Was considering using sass again.

[@deltachidesigns]

Thank you very much, just what I needed right now! I would love to see some more advanced features in a future tutorial. :)

[@kareNbud]

Very helpful and very nicely compact explanation!

[@lornecyr849]

Awesome explanation, I would love to see a more in depth video/series of videos on Dart Sass :)

[@ropurifiedwater]

Thank you sir for the video, would love to see another sass video for the more advanced stuff. Thank you once again, you helped me understand a lot :)

[@rihardssimanovics]

Hey, thank you soooo much. I am currently trying to get my dev team to move away from old sass to dart sass and have hit this exact issue. for now, I'll use this video to fix the problem and then start reading more on the @use and @forward.

[@rkd-me]

Okay, found you by accident, watched three videos and decided to sub, great explanations.

[@LyricLounge7]

Thank you very much, Kevin. I've been waiting for a tutorial about this

[@nathanwatts76]

Great explanation, yes please continue with more advanced topics.

[@Kabraxiz]

Thank You Kevin ! You are the first one on the whole YT who explained it simply, and shortly 🫡

[@allie-ontheweb]

I'd definitely love to see more SASS videos!

[@0oopssorry]

At first you think "oh no, this is a lot to absorb..." and then you think "how could I have lived without this?!". Thanks for the gradual layering of information when it comes to a complex thing.

[@ekanemeno4565]

My brother and I started learning and working with SASS just last night and he told me about how much he love the 'import' keyword. Your video came in at the perfect time and again shows why we must keep learning

[@Phobo55]

Looking forward for the most advanced

[@erikkisko3194]

I would be happy to watch more advanced video!!! Please make it.

[@simonchan5195]

Wow what a great video. Everyone talks about @use but no one ever mentions what or how to use @forward

[@dimitrisleontaridis449]

Man, I set the playback speed to 0.75 and your flow still sounds normal! Btw great info, clearly explained. Thanks for the video

[@patricknelson]

Been using SCSS since 214 but on an old project; interested in casually learning some of the new features that have been added over time, for sure.

[@meijiOrO]

Thank you for explaining how to use @forward! Since I'm learning react I found myself having to change to npm sass instead of node-sass. Finding out I had to convert to @use in the first half of the video was making me PISSED cause I don't want to keep typing over and over again for global things like variables and mixins. Thankfully you showed us @forward cause I was going to riot.

[@frostyy3683]

Thank you Kevin, this helped me out big time

[@danielahermosillo8991]

High quality explanation! Thank you very much for your video, helped me a lot! New subscriber :)!

[@jaceborg]

Seems like an arduous solution to a problem that most SASS users have never experienced :/

[@georgesaitdev]

So nice! That was 13 minutes well spent! Good stuff, you got yourself a subscriber :-). Thanks!

[@user-se6ct5zu2f]

Thanks for the explanation! You're the only who helped me understand it. But the downside of this system is that you can't use your functions withing mixins as if it would be in a single file i.e. _vars.scss. So I'd like to see more videos on sass file structure, how to organize your project sass files with this new modular system. Thanks a lot for understatnding!!!

[@andressa1163]

what an explanation!!! super clear, thanks!!

[@staffel0232]

Muchas gracias!, Saludos desde Colombia. Justo estoy iniciando con Sass y estas clases me vienen muy bien.

[@lighty262]

Thank you for the news, greatly appreciated.

[@maciejmyslinski7820]

I've to try it. Thanks for video!

[@yourix2]

Hahah you had that typical classroom teacher face when you said. "Take a guess". That classroom student feeling came rushing to my brain hahah xD

[@lali0050]

Ohhh Jesus! you really save me. thanks for the clarity.

[@imtheaman]

Thanks very much for making this tutorial. my extensions were getting crashed each time when i was using import while the server running.

[@mudyeet_]

Would love more videos on sass please!

[@wvovaw3052]

I accidently wrote my own scss library after watching this tutorial

[@israelmedinagalicia]

wow !!!. Your explanation let me see a whole new approach

[@qodesmith520]

You always have fantastic content 💯

[@itsWooody]

Didnt know ../ was what i missing to access nested scss files thanks for the video helped a ton!

[@bjgjuiuguoojpoo]

As usually MORE THAN AWESOME! Thank YOu veeerrryyyy MUCH!

[@DanielRios549]

This is amazing, I love CSS, I always yes it with Sass to use nested styles, but I never had heard about @use and @foward, the way it works is very similar to others languages such as Python

[@jagjeetsingh4597]

Great Video Kevin! 🖒waiting for more new SASS Videos

[@mangadi3859]

So that's why i can't use @use. I'm using the vscode extension. Thank you kevin!

[@alexkiiru1283]

Thank you.This was immensly helpful👃

[@Jamiered18]

I didn't like it at first, it seemed like a lot of extra work. Then you explained the additional features and now I do like it, they actually thought about how to make it simpler without killing the benefits of namespacing.

[@brettshenk51]

Looking forward to new SASS videos!

[@Pareshbpatel]

Great Lesson. Thanks, Kevin.