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

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 2

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.

Answer 3

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 appearanceWhenContainedInInstancesOfClasses:@[[UISearchBar class]]] setAttributedPlaceholder:attributedPlaceholder];

Answer 4

It is easy from iOS 13.0 onwards, You can simply use searchTextField property of a search bar to update attributed properties of the placeholder.

self.searchController.searchBar.searchTextField.attributedPlaceholder =  NSAttributedString.init(string: "Search anything...", attributes: [NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor:UIColor.red])

One line solution

Answer 5

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