Why is my conditional statement not working as expected in useEffect hook?

It seems that the if-statement in my useEffect hook is evaluating, even though the condition is false. Why is this happening?

My code:

useEffect(() => {
  console.log(localStorage.getItem("darkMode"))
  if (localStorage.getItem("darkMode")) {
    console.log(localStorage.getItem("darkMode"))
  }
}, [])

The console:
Console showing false twice

My code compiles with no warnings or errors, and my useEffect function is in the top-level of my App component.

>Solution :

The issue is that localStorage.getItem always returns a string (or null if there is no value). Because of that it will always run the code inside the if-block unless the string is empty.
You can either parse the string with JSON.parse or simply check for equality to "true".

useEffect(() => {
  console.log(localStorage.getItem("darkMode"))
  if (localStorage.getItem("darkMode") === "true") {
    console.log(localStorage.getItem("darkMode"))
  }
}, [])

or

useEffect(() => {
  const mode = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem("darkMode"));
  console.log(mode);
  if (mode) {
    console.log(mode)
  }
}, [])