UISearchBar change placeholder color

Question

Has anyone any idea or code sample on how can I change the text color of the placeholder text of a UISearchBar?

Answer 1

for iOS5+ use the appearance proxy

[[UILabel appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UISearchBar class], nil] setTextColor:[UIColor redColor]];

Answer 2

Here is a Solution for Swift:

Swift 2

var textFieldInsideSearchBar = searchBar.valueForKey("searchField") as? UITextField
textFieldInsideSearchBar?.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()

var textFieldInsideSearchBarLabel = textFieldInsideSearchBar!.valueForKey("placeholderLabel") as? UILabel
textFieldInsideSearchBarLabel?.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()

Swift 3

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

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

Answer 3

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

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

        if 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
}

Answer 4

Try this and see: (I tested below code with Swift 4.1 - Xcode 9.3-beta4)

@IBOutlet weak var sbSearchBar: UISearchBar!

if let textfield = sbSearchBar.value(forKey: "searchField") as? UITextField {

    textfield.backgroundColor = UIColor.yellow
    textfield.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: textfield.placeholder ?? "", attributes: [NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor : UIColor.red])

    textfield.textColor = UIColor.green

    if let leftView = textfield.leftView as? UIImageView {
        leftView.image = leftView.image?.withRenderingMode(.alwaysTemplate)
        leftView.tintColor = UIColor.red
    }
}

Here is result:

Answer 5

Swift 3

UILabel.appearance(whenContainedInInstancesOf: [UISearchBar.self]).textColor = UIColor.white

Answer 6

Try this:

[self.searchBar setValue:[UIColor whatever] forKeyPath:@"_searchField._placeholderLabel.textColor"];

You can also set this in storyboard, select search bar, add entry under User Defined Runtime Attributes:

_searchField._placeholderLabel.textColor

of type Color and select the color you need.