Change title of MFMailComposeViewController

Question

I'm using MFMailComposeViewController for in-app email in my app, but I'm not able to change the title. As default it's showing the subject in the title, but I would like to set the title to be something else. How can I do that?

I've tried:

controller.title = @"Feedback";

but it didn't work.

Here's my code:

- (IBAction)email {
    NSArray *array = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:@"myemail@gmail.com", nil];
    MFMailComposeViewController *controller = [[MFMailComposeViewController alloc] init];
    [[controller navigationBar] setTintColor:[UIColor colorWithRed:0.36 green:0.09 blue:0.39 alpha:1.00]];
    controller.mailComposeDelegate = self;
    controller.title = @"Feedback";
    [controller setSubject:@"Long subject"];
    [controller setMessageBody:@""
                        isHTML:NO];
    [controller setToRecipients:array];
    [self presentModalViewController:controller animated:YES];
    [controller release];
    [array release];
}

- (void)mailComposeController:(MFMailComposeViewController *)controller didFinishWithResult:(MFMailComposeResult)result error:(NSError *)error {
    [self becomeFirstResponder];
    [self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];
}

Answer 1

You can set a different title for your MFMailComposeViewController with a single line, like so.

...
[self presentModalViewController:controller animated:YES]; // Existing line
[[[[controller viewControllers] lastObject] navigationItem] setTitle:@"SomethingElse"];
...

However, this implementation effectively relies on undocumented features of MFMailComposeViewController. You're accessing the navigationItem of a private class (_MFMailComposeRootViewController) and changing its title to something other than the mail subject. I echo Art Gillespie's sentiment in that you should not do this and are very likely to be rejected by the Apple reviewers for doing something like this. In addition, this process could change completely in any minor point release of the iPhone OS, possibly causing crashes for your users until you can release an update to fix the behavior.

The decision is up to you, though, and if you still want to take these unrecommended steps, that is how you do it.

Answer 2

From the MFMailComposeViewController Class Reference:

Important: The mail composition interface itself is not customizable and must not be modified by your application. In addition, after presenting the interface, your application is not allowed to make further changes to the email content.

Answer 3

It seems that the subject of the message feeds the title of MFMailComposeViewController in iOS 8.

Answer 4

You should be able to take just a view (controller.view) and place it inside of your controller ... in that moment, you are not modifying anything and you are actually doing almost the same thing like Apple in their iPad email app when composing an email ... same thing should work on iPhone too ...

Answer 5

Sbrocket's answer works great. This is how to add a title view (label):

// existing
[self presentModalViewController:controller animated:YES];

// new code
CGRect frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 44);
UILabel *label = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:frame];
label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
label.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"MarkerFelt-Thin" size:18.0];
label.adjustsFontSizeToFitWidth = YES;
label.minimumFontSize = 12.0;
label.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
label.textColor = [UIColor darkGrayColor];
label.text = @"Your Comments";
[[[[controller viewControllers] lastObject] navigationItem] setTitleView:label];

Same comments as above, it's not really recommended to customize MFMailComposeViewController...

Answer 6

Most likely, you would have to dig down in the view hierarchy to find the raw UINavigationBar that contains the title, and manually set the title on that.

The program class-dump may come in handy here for determining the exact classes used. Trial, error, and a debugger are most likely your best bet.