Change tab bar item selected color in a storyboard

Question

Add Runtime Color attribute named "tintColor" from StoryBoard. This is working(for Xcode 8 and above).

if you want unselected color.. you can add unselectedItemTintColor too.

This elegant solution works great on SWIFT 3.0, SWIFT 4.2 and SWIFT 5.1:

On the Storyboard:

1. Select your Tab Bar
2. Set a Runtime Attibute called tintColor for the desired color of the Selected Icon on the tab bar
3. Set a Runtime Attibute called unselectedItemTintColor for the desired color of the Unselected Icon on the tab bar

Edit: Working with Xcode 8/10, for iOS 10/12 and above.

In Swift, using xcode 7 (and later), you can add the following to your AppDelegate.swift file:

UITabBar.appearance().tintColor = UIColor(red: 255/255.0, green: 255/255.0, blue: 255/255.0, alpha: 1.0)

This is the what the complete method looks like:

func application(application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [NSObject: AnyObject]?) -> Bool {

    // I added this line
    UITabBar.appearance().tintColor = UIColor(red: 255/255.0, green: 255/255.0, blue: 255/255.0, alpha: 1.0)

    return true
}

In the example above my item will be white. The "/255.0" is needed because it expects a value from 0 to 1. For white, I could have just used 1. But for other color you'll probably be using RGB values.

On Xcode8 I have changed the ImageTint from the storyboard and it works well.

The result:

Swift 3 | Xcode 10

If you want to make all tab bar items the same color (selected & unselected)...

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Step 1

Make sure your image assets are setup to Render As = Template Image. This allows them to inherit color.

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Step 2

Use the storyboard editor to change your tab bar settings as follows:

• Set Tab Bar: Image Tint to the color you want the selected icon to inherit.
• Set Tab Bar: Bar Tint to the color you want the tab bar to be.
• Set View: Tint to the color you want to see in the storyboard editor, this doesn't affect the icon color when your app is run.

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Step 3

Steps 1 & 2 will change the color for the selected icon. If you still want to change the color of the unselected items, you need to do it in code. I haven't found a way to do it via the storyboard editor.

Create a custom tab bar controller class...

//  TabBarController.swift

class TabBarController: UITabBarController {

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        // make unselected icons white
        self.tabBar.unselectedItemTintColor = UIColor.white
    }
}

... and assign the custom class to your tab bar scene controller.

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If you figure out how to change the unselected icon color via the storyboard editor please let me know. Thanks!