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

This solution works on Xcode 8.2.1. with Swift 3.0. :

extension UISearchBar
{
    func setPlaceholderTextColorTo(color: UIColor)
    {
        let textFieldInsideSearchBar = self.value(forKey: "searchField") as? UITextField
        textFieldInsideSearchBar?.textColor = color
        let textFieldInsideSearchBarLabel = textFieldInsideSearchBar!.value(forKey: "placeholderLabel") as? UILabel
        textFieldInsideSearchBarLabel?.textColor = color
    }
}

Usage example:

searchController.searchBar.setPlaceholderTextColorTo(color: mainColor)

Answer 2

Found the answer from Change UITextField's placeholder text color programmatically

// Get the instance of the UITextField of the search bar
UITextField *searchField = [searchBar valueForKey:@"_searchField"];

// Change search bar text color
searchField.textColor = [UIColor redColor];

// Change the search bar placeholder text color
[searchField setValue:[UIColor blueColor] forKeyPath:@"_placeholderLabel.textColor"];

Answer 3

Try this:

  UITextField *searchField = [searchbar valueForKey:@"_searchField"];
  field.textColor = [UIColor redColor]; //You can put any color here.

Answer 4

After surveyed a couple of answers, I come out this, hope its help

for (UIView *subview in searchBar.subviews) {
    for (UIView *sv in subview.subviews) {
        if ([NSStringFromClass([sv class]) isEqualToString:@"UISearchBarTextField"]) {

            if ([sv respondsToSelector:@selector(setAttributedPlaceholder:)]) {
                ((UITextField *)sv).attributedPlaceholder = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:searchBar.placeholder attributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName: [UIColor whiteColor]}];
            }
            break;
        }
    }
}

Answer 5

This is an old question, but for anyone stumbling on it nowadays, you can change the search icon on iOS 8.x - 10.3 using the following:

[_searchBar setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"your-image-name"] forSearchBarIcon:UISearchBarIconSearch state:UIControlStateNormal];

Regarding the placeholder text color, you may check my other answer, which uses a Category, here: UISearchBar change placeholder color

Answer 6

First solution is OK, but if you use multiple UISearchBar, or create a lot of instances it may fail. The one solution that always work for me is to use also appearance proxy but directly on UITextField

   NSDictionary *placeholderAttributes = @{
                                            NSForegroundColorAttributeName: [UIColor darkButtonColor],
                                            NSFontAttributeName: [UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue" size:15],
                                            };

    NSAttributedString *attributedPlaceholder = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:self.searchBar.placeholder
                                                                                attributes:placeholderAttributes];

    [[UITextField appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UISearchBar class], nil] setAttributedPlaceholder:attributedPlaceholder];