How to change UISearchBar Placeholder and image tint color?

Question

I've been trying search results for hours, but I can't get this figured out. Perhaps it isn't possible. I'm trying to change the tint color of the placeholder text and magnifying glass of a UISearchBar. I'm only targeting iOS 8.0+ if that matters. Here's my code and what it looks like now:

let searchBar = UISearchBar()
searchBar.placeholder = "Search"
searchBar.searchBarStyle = UISearchBarStyle.Minimal
searchBar.tintColor = UIColor.whiteColor()

I'd like for the search and magnifying glass to be white, or perhaps a dark green.

Doby

seachControl.searchBar.placeholder = "" – Avner

Answer 1

If you have a custom image you could use, you can set the image and change the placeholder text color using something similar to the following:

[searchBar setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"SearchWhite"] forSearchBarIcon:UISearchBarIconSearch state:UIControlStateNormal];

UITextField *searchTextField = [searchBar valueForKey:@"_searchField"];    
if ([searchTextField respondsToSelector:@selector(setAttributedPlaceholder:)]) {
    UIColor *color = [UIColor purpleColor];
    [searchTextField setAttributedPlaceholder:[[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:@"Search" attributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName: color}]];
}

In that example I used purpleColor, instead you can use the + (UIColor *)colorWithRed:(CGFloat)red green:(CGFloat)green blue:(CGFloat)blue alpha:(CGFloat)alpha method to create your custom dark green color.

EDIT: I just realized you were writing it in swift... duh. Quickly typed this out so I didn't leave the answer in just Obj-C.

    searchBar.setImage(UIImage(named: "SearchWhite"), forSearchBarIcon: UISearchBarIcon.Search, state: UIControlState.Normal);

    var searchTextField: UITextField? = searchBar.valueForKey("searchField") as? UITextField
    if searchTextField!.respondsToSelector(Selector("attributedPlaceholder")) {
        var color = UIColor.purpleColor()
        let attributeDict = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName: UIColor.purpleColor()]
        searchTextField!.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: "search", attributes: attributeDict)
    }

Swift 3.0

    var searchTextField: UITextField? = searchBar.value(forKey: "searchField") as? UITextField
    if searchTextField!.responds(to: #selector(getter: UITextField.attributedPlaceholder)) {
        let attributeDict = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName: UIColor.white]
        searchTextField!.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: "Search", attributes: attributeDict)
    }

Whinstone

This is perfect, thank you so much. I hadn't seen searchBar.valueForKey("searchField") as? UITextField before, which is brilliant. Any chance you know how to change the clear button (the little round x) as well? – Doby

I would imagine it would be the same way as the setImage but instead of using the UISearchBarIcon.Search, you would instead use .Clear??? I haven't actually tried that though. Outside of that I know the actual word "Cancel" is affected by the searchBar.tintColor... – Whinstone

Accessing private properties or APIs is a sure way to get your app rejected. – Dashed

don't use private APIs – Mechanics

Answer 2

Details

• Xcode Version 11.0 (11A420a), iOS 13, swift 5

Solution

import UIKit

extension UISearchBar {

    func getTextField() -> UITextField? { return value(forKey: "searchField") as? UITextField }
    func set(textColor: UIColor) { if let textField = getTextField() { textField.textColor = textColor } }
    func setPlaceholder(textColor: UIColor) { getTextField()?.setPlaceholder(textColor: textColor) }
    func setClearButton(color: UIColor) { getTextField()?.setClearButton(color: color) }

    func setTextField(color: UIColor) {
        guard let textField = getTextField() else { return }
        switch searchBarStyle {
        case .minimal:
            textField.layer.backgroundColor = color.cgColor
            textField.layer.cornerRadius = 6
        case .prominent, .default: textField.backgroundColor = color
        @unknown default: break
        }
    }

    func setSearchImage(color: UIColor) {
        guard let imageView = getTextField()?.leftView as? UIImageView else { return }
        imageView.tintColor = color
        imageView.image = imageView.image?.withRenderingMode(.alwaysTemplate)
    }
}

private extension UITextField {

    private class Label: UILabel {
        private var _textColor = UIColor.lightGray
        override var textColor: UIColor! {
            set { super.textColor = _textColor }
            get { return _textColor }
        }

        init(label: UILabel, textColor: UIColor = .lightGray) {
            _textColor = textColor
            super.init(frame: label.frame)
            self.text = label.text
            self.font = label.font
        }

        required init?(coder: NSCoder) { super.init(coder: coder) }
    }


    private class ClearButtonImage {
        static private var _image: UIImage?
        static private var semaphore = DispatchSemaphore(value: 1)
        static func getImage(closure: @escaping (UIImage?)->()) {
            DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInteractive).async {
                semaphore.wait()
                DispatchQueue.main.async {
                    if let image = _image { closure(image); semaphore.signal(); return }
                    guard let window = UIApplication.shared.windows.first else { semaphore.signal(); return }
                    let searchBar = UISearchBar(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: -200, width: UIScreen.main.bounds.width, height: 44))
                    window.rootViewController?.view.addSubview(searchBar)
                    searchBar.text = "txt"
                    searchBar.layoutIfNeeded()
                    _image = searchBar.getTextField()?.getClearButton()?.image(for: .normal)
                    closure(_image)
                    searchBar.removeFromSuperview()
                    semaphore.signal()
                }
            }
        }
    }

    func setClearButton(color: UIColor) {
        ClearButtonImage.getImage { [weak self] image in
            guard   let image = image,
                let button = self?.getClearButton() else { return }
            button.imageView?.tintColor = color
            button.setImage(image.withRenderingMode(.alwaysTemplate), for: .normal)
        }
    }

    var placeholderLabel: UILabel? { return value(forKey: "placeholderLabel") as? UILabel }

    func setPlaceholder(textColor: UIColor) {
        guard let placeholderLabel = placeholderLabel else { return }
        let label = Label(label: placeholderLabel, textColor: textColor)
        setValue(label, forKey: "placeholderLabel")
    }

    func getClearButton() -> UIButton? { return value(forKey: "clearButton") as? UIButton }
}

Full Sample

import UIKit

class ViewController: UIViewController {
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        let searchBar = UISearchBar(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 20, width: UIScreen.main.bounds.width, height: 44))
        searchBar.searchBarStyle = .default
        view.addSubview(searchBar)

        searchBar.placeholder = "placeholder"
        searchBar.set(textColor: .brown)
        searchBar.setTextField(color: UIColor.green.withAlphaComponent(0.3))
        searchBar.setPlaceholder(textColor: .white)
        searchBar.setSearchImage(color: .white)
        searchBar.setClearButton(color: .red)
    }
}

Result

Armorial

I've been trying to get this to work on iOS 11 when SearchBar is within the NavigationBar without success. Any ideas? – Keelia

Hello Renato. I can't understand your problem. You can't add SearchBar to NavigationBar? – Armorial

Thank you so much! – Libbie

Magnifying glass and search placeholder not in centre as per your output. – Fetich

This solution looks great, but for UISearchController you need to subclass both UISearchController and it's UISearchBar. Even then, the clear button coloring still doesn't work. Any ideas why? – Nefen

This is a good solution but it can easily be broken if Apple decides to change the internal subview structure of UISearchBar in a future iOS release. I'm amazed they don't expose simple appearance customisations like this as a public API. – Cagliari

@VasilyBodnarchuk Great answer. In swift 4 I think NSForegroundColorAttributeName has been changed to NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor. – Wallack

Great Solution! One issue is ClearButtonColor is not working in iOS 12.0. – Puzzler

@VasilyBodnarchuk I think what @Keelia meant was if you add the searchController straight to the navigationItem like this navigationItem.searchController = searchController, these methods don't work. I noticed however if you add the searchBar of the searchController to the titleView of the navigationItem like this, navigationItem.titleView = searchController.searchBar, it works. – Balkan

@Balkan It can be true. Because searchController has own searchBar. In this case I suggest to inherit searchController and updated its searchBar. – Armorial

Searchbar's placeholder color is not changing on iOS 13. – Dinge

Answer 3

Swift 3: If you want to change the placeholder, clearbutton and magnifier glass

    let textFieldInsideSearchBar = searchBar.value(forKey: "searchField") as? UITextField
    textFieldInsideSearchBar?.textColor = UIColor.white

    let textFieldInsideSearchBarLabel = textFieldInsideSearchBar!.value(forKey: "placeholderLabel") as? UILabel
    textFieldInsideSearchBarLabel?.textColor = UIColor.white

    let clearButton = textFieldInsideSearchBar?.value(forKey: "clearButton") as! UIButton
    clearButton.setImage(clearButton.imageView?.image?.withRenderingMode(.alwaysTemplate), for: .normal)
    clearButton.tintColor = UIColor.white

    let glassIconView = textFieldInsideSearchBar?.leftView as? UIImageView

    glassIconView?.image = glassIconView?.image?.withRenderingMode(.alwaysTemplate)
    glassIconView?.tintColor = UIColor.white

Beginning

self.searcBar.setTextFieldColor(color: .white) not working why ? still showing light lightGray color, but other colors are working but white not working any idea ? .... – Samarium

Answer 4

You can change the color of the text without violating the private api rule:

UILabel.appearanceWhenContainedInInstancesOfClasses([UITextField.self]).textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()

Mechanics

appearanceWhenContainedInInstancesOfClasses is only available in ios9+ – Dalmatian

Answer 5

I could not make it work properly with any of the above solutions.

I created the following UISearchBar category which works properly on iOS 8.4 and 10.3:

UISearchBar+PlaceholderColor.h

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface UISearchBar (PlaceholderColor)

- (void)setPlaceholderColor:(UIColor *)placeholderColor;

@end

UISearchBar+PlaceholderColor.m

#import "UISearchBar+PlaceholderColor.h"

@implementation UISearchBar (PlaceholderColor)

- (void)setPlaceholderColor:(UIColor *)placeholderColor {
    UILabel *labelView = [self searchBarTextFieldLabelFromView:self];
    [labelView setTextColor:placeholderColor];
}

- (UILabel *)searchBarTextFieldLabelFromView:(UIView *)view {
    for (UIView *v in [view subviews]) {
        if ([v isKindOfClass:[UILabel class]]) {
            return (UILabel *)v;
        }

        UIView *labelView = [self searchBarTextFieldLabelFromView:v];
        if (labelView) {
            return (UILabel *)labelView;
        }
    }

    return nil;
}

@end

USAGE:

[mySearchBar setPlaceholderColor:[UIColor redColor]];

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Make sure that you call setPlaceholderColor: AFTER your UISearchBar has been added to the view and has created its view hierarchy.

If you open your search bar programmatically, call it AFTER your becomeFirstResponder call, as such:

[mySearchBar becomeFirstResponder];
[searchBar setPlaceholderColor:[UIColor redColor]];

Otherwise, if you are leveraging UISearchBarDelegate:

- (void)searchBarTextDidBeginEditing:(UISearchBar *)searchBar {
    [searchBar setPlaceholderColor:[UIColor redColor]];
}

Contented

Answer 6

I made a Swift 4.1 search bar extension:

import Foundation
import UIKit
extension UISearchBar{
    func setTextField(placeHolderColor:UIColor = .gray,placeHolder:String = "Search Something",textColor:UIColor = .white,backgroundColor:UIColor = .black,
                      placeHolderFont:UIFont = UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 12.0),
                      textFont:UIFont =  UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 12.0) ){
        for item in self.subviews{
            for mainView in (item as UIView).subviews{
                mainView.backgroundColor = backgroundColor
                if mainView is UITextField{
                    let textField = mainView as? UITextField
                    if let _textF = textField{
                        _textF.text = "success"
                        _textF.textColor = textColor
                        _textF.font      = textFont
                        _textF.attributedPlaceholder = NSMutableAttributedString.init(string: placeHolder, attributes: [NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor : placeHolderColor,
                                                                                                                               NSAttributedStringKey.font : placeHolderFont])
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

You can use this for your searchBar like this :

controller.searchBar.setTextField(placeHolderColor: .white,
 placeHolder: "Search A Pet",
 textColor: .white,
 backgroundColor: .green,
 placeHolderFont: UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 14.0),
 textFont: UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 14.0))

Loats

Answer 7

extension UISearchBar {
    var textField: UITextField? { return value(forKey: "searchField") as? UITextField }
    var placeholderLabel: UILabel? { return textField?.value(forKey: "placeholderLabel") as? UILabel }
    var icon: UIImageView? { return textField?.leftView as? UIImageView }
    var iconColor: UIColor? {
        get {
            return icon?.tintColor
        }
        set {
            icon?.image = icon?.image?.withRenderingMode(.alwaysTemplate)
            icon?.tintColor = newValue
        }
    }
}

Idiotic

Nice solution! Icon works fine, placeholder text doesn't change for me though. – Undergo

Answer 8

I found a way to change the textfiled in search bar. It works in swift 3 and Xcode8.

Firstly, subclass the UISearchBar class.

class CustomSearchBar: UISearchBar {

UISearchBar include a view which has the important textfield you wanted. Following function get the index in subviews.

func indexOfSearchFieldInSubviews() -> Int! {
    var index: Int!
    let searchBarView = subviews[0]
    for (i, subview) in searchBarView.subviews.enumerated() {
        if subview.isKind(of: UITextField.self) {
            index = i
            break
        }
    }
    return index
}


override func draw(_ rect: CGRect) {
    // Find the index of the search field in the search bar subviews.
    if let index = indexOfSearchFieldInSubviews() {
        // Access the search field
        let searchField: UITextField = subviews[0].subviews[index] as! UITextField
        // Set its frame.
        searchField.frame = CGRect(x: 5, y: 5, width: frame.size.width - 10, height: frame.size.height - 10)
        // Set the font and text color of the search field.
        searchField.font = preferredFont
        searchField.textColor = preferredTextColor

        // Set the placeholder and its color
        let attributesDictionary = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName: preferredPlaceholderColor.cgColor]
        searchField.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: preferredPlaceholder, attributes: attributesDictionary)

        // Set the background color of the search field.
        searchField.backgroundColor = barTintColor
    }

    super.draw(rect)
}

There you go, enjoy for this.

Wellfixed

Do you have the source code for this? I am having trouble understanding this. – Election

Hi @ethanfox27, here is the source code, hope for help. github.com/JeromeTW/XZY-s-Blog/blob/master/ReadMe.txt github.com/JeromeTW/XZY-s-Blog/blob/master/… – Wellfixed

Answer 9

Small update to Vasily Bodnarchuk's great answer.

Swift 4+

NSForegroundColorAttributeName has been changed to NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor

Aguirre

Answer 10

For anybody just trying to change the text and having trouble seeing the updated placeholder, it worked for me by putting it here instead of viewDidLoad.

- (void)viewDidLayoutSubviews {
    [super viewDidLayoutSubviews];
    self.searchBar.placeholder = @"My Custom Text";
}

Bedight

Answer 11

Just found this thread, sorry about the bump given the age. However it helped me in trying to fix my issue, and adding onto @m_katsifarakis answer, I added more to his existing category.

Adding additional color + font support for both placeholder and input text.

Only tested on iOS 13 as that's all I am supporting.

@interface UISearchBar (ColorandFont)
- (void)setPlaceholderColor:(UIColor *)placeholderColor setPlaceholderFont:(UIFont *)placeholderFont;
- (void)setTextColor:(UIColor *)textColor setTextFont:(UIFont *)textFont;
@end
@implementation UISearchBar (ColorandFont)

//Placeholder Color
- (void)setPlaceholderColor:(UIColor *)placeholderColor setPlaceholderFont:(UIFont *)placeholderFont{
    UILabel *labelView = [self placeholderText:self];
    [labelView setTextColor:placeholderColor];
    [labelView setFont:placeholderFont];
}
- (UILabel *)placeholderText:(UIView *)view {
    for (UIView *v in [view subviews]) {
        if ([v isKindOfClass:[UILabel class]]) {
            return (UILabel *)v;
        }

        UIView *labelView = [self placeholderText:v];
        if (labelView) {
            return (UILabel *)labelView;
        }
    }
    return nil;
}

//Text Color
- (void)setTextColor:(UIColor *)textColor setTextFont:(UIFont *)textFont{
    UITextField *textView = [self searchBarText:self];
    [textView setTextColor:textColor];
    [textView setFont:textFont];
}
- (UITextField *)searchBarText:(UIView *)view {
    for (UIView *v in [view subviews]) {
        if ([v isKindOfClass:[UITextField class]]) {
            return (UITextField *)v;
        }

        UIView *textView = [self searchBarText:v];
        if (textView) {
            return (UITextField *)textView;
        }
    }
    return nil;
}
@end

Usage (I used in viewDidLoad and Appear) given my current setup, results may vary:

[self.searchBar setPlaceholderColor:[UIColor lightTextColor] setPlaceholderFont:[UIFont italicSystemFontOfSize:13]];
[self.searchBar setTextColor:[UIColor whiteColor] setTextFont:[UIFont systemFontOfSize:16]];

Zielsdorf

Answer 12

In Swift 4, assuming your search controller is set like this:

let searchController = UISearchController(searchResultsController: nil)

then set placeholder text as follows:

searchController.searchBar.placeholder = "Here is my custom text"

Safari

The question is how to change the colors, not how to set the text – Abingdon