UITabBar bar item icons are gray by default?

Question

Can anyone tell me in Swift 2.0 how to override Xcode's default gray color in my UITabBar icons? This question's not cutting it for me: Tab bar item icons appear darker.

Using the default UITabBarController, and I'm using .png's for my icons. I'd like to keep the original colors of my .png's but Xcode is coloring them to gray. — Grant Park, Dec 12 '15 at 05:29

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 12 '15 at 06:33

In my first view controller's viewDidLoad, I placed the following and it worked like a charm:

    let aTabArray: [UITabBarItem] = (self.tabBarController?.tabBar.items)!

    for item in aTabArray {
        item.image = item.image?.imageWithRenderingMode(UIImageRenderingMode.AlwaysOriginal)
        item.imageInsets = UIEdgeInsetsMake(7, 0, -7, 0)
    }

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 12 '15 at 04:50

you need to set color for UITabBarItem or else you have to set In UITabBarItem along with along with you need to set imageInsets for UITabBarItem like UITabBarItem is

let customTabBarItem:UITabBarItem = UITabBarItem(title: nil, image: UIImage(named: "favorites.png")?.imageWithRenderingMode(UIImageRenderingMode.AlwaysOriginal), selectedImage: UIImage(named: "favorites_h.png")?.imageWithRenderingMode(UIImageRenderingMode.AlwaysOriginal))

and imageInset :

customTabBarItem.imageInsets = UIEdgeInsetsMake(5, 0, -5, 0)

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 14 '21 at 08:05

For iOS13+, I use code below to set UITabBar item title && icon color to support dark mode.

       if #available(iOS 13, *) {
            let appearance = UITabBarAppearance()
            appearance.shadowImage = UIImage()
            appearance.shadowColor = .white
            
            appearance.stackedLayoutAppearance.normal.iconColor = .label
            appearance.stackedLayoutAppearance.normal.titleTextAttributes = [NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: UIColor.label]
            //            appearance.stackedLayoutAppearance.normal.badgeBackgroundColor = .yellow
            
            appearance.stackedLayoutAppearance.selected.iconColor = .myGreen
            appearance.stackedLayoutAppearance.selected.titleTextAttributes = [NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: UIColor.myGreen]
            self.tabBar.standardAppearance = appearance
        }

UITabBar bar item icons are gray by default?

3 Answers3