How to clear UISearchBar background color in iOS10 Swift?

Question

There are older version of this question for older versions of iOS no longer works due to the layout changes in UISearchBar.

I've tried the following to completely remove the background color of UISearchBar but it doesn't work. (I tried to look up the hierarchy views of it but xCode kept crashing for this option.)

private func clearBackgroundColor() {
    for view in self.subviews {
        view.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear
        for subview in view.subviews {
            subview.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear
        }
    }
} 

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks!!

Pug

Did you call this function in ViewDidLayoutSubviews() ? – Iridis

@Iridis Nah, UISearchBar doesn't have this method. I called it from initialization. – Pug

Answer 1

private func clearBackgroundColor() {
    guard let UISearchBarBackground: AnyClass = NSClassFromString("UISearchBarBackground") else { return }

    for view in self.subviews {
        for subview in view.subviews where subview.isKind(of: UISearchBarBackground) {
            subview.alpha = 0
        }
    }
}

This is what I did in the end that worked. Thanks all for your answers.

Pug

Just as a comment for future wanderers... This works on Xcode 9, Swift 3.0 (haven't worked with 4.0 yet, don't wanna break my production code) @Lumialxk's answer didn't work. – Haversack

@QuantumHoneybees for iOS 11 you will need to iterate in the content view. searchBar.subviews.first?.subviews instead of searchBar.subviews – Sorrel

@QuantumHoneybees this solution works for iOS 12.4 also. I dont know how you did it, it works fine when added as a extension to uiview. – Suellensuelo

Answer 2

I think you are mention about BarTintColor of search bar

try this:

searchBar.barTintColor = .white

Common

Thanks. But the thing is I need is to set it to UIColor.clear. After I set it to clear, it actually shows up as black on screen. I need everything inside this search bar to have a transparent color, only except for the text input. – Pug

UIColor.clear show the color of the view behind your searchBar. So I think the view behind your searchBar's backgounrd color is black – Footlocker

Answer 3

Just set the Search Bar style to .Minimal in Interface Builder or code and the background will go transparent.

Edaedacious

Answer 4

Try this.

class CustomSearchBar: UISearchBar {
    override func layoutSubviews() {
        super.layoutSubviews()
        clearBackgroundColor() // function in the question
    }
}

private func clearBackgroundColor() {
    for view in self.subviews {
        view.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear
        for subview in view.subviews {
            subview.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear
        }
    }
} 

Iridis

Thanks, I went to another direction after my xCode "View Hierarchy" function works, basically checked out all the names inside the layout. – Pug

Answer 5

try set backgroundimage: [searchBar setBackgroundImage:[UIImage new]];

Therapy

Answer 6

let searchBar = UISearchBar()
searchBar.backgroundImage = UIImage()

Ileac

Answer 7

You can change search style to "Minimal" in Interface Builder

Octa