How do you set the title color for the new Toolbar?

Question

Option 1) The quick and easy way (Toolbar only)

Since appcompat-v7-r23 you can use the following attributes directly on your Toolbar or its style:

app:titleTextColor="@color/primary_text"
app:subtitleTextColor="@color/secondary_text"

If your minimum SDK is 23 and you use native Toolbar just change the namespace prefix to android.

In Java you can use the following methods:

toolbar.setTitleTextColor(Color.WHITE);
toolbar.setSubtitleTextColor(Color.WHITE);

These methods take a color int not a color resource ID!

Option 2) Override Toolbar style and theme attributes

layout/xxx.xml

<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:id="@+id/toolbar"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"
    android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.MyApp.ActionBar"
    app:popupTheme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light"
    style="@style/Widget.MyApp.Toolbar.Solid"/>

values/styles.xml

<style name="Widget.MyApp.Toolbar.Solid" parent="Widget.AppCompat.ActionBar">
    <item name="android:background">@color/actionbar_color</item>
    <item name="android:elevation" tools:ignore="NewApi">4dp</item>
    <item name="titleTextAppearance">...</item>
</style>

<style name="ThemeOverlay.MyApp.ActionBar" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.ActionBar">
    <!-- Parent theme sets colorControlNormal to textColorPrimary. -->
    <item name="android:textColorPrimary">@color/actionbar_title_text</item>
</style>

Help! My icons changed color too!

@PeterKnut reported this affects the color of overflow button, navigation drawer button and back button. It also changes text color of SearchView.

Concerning the icon colors: The colorControlNormal inherits from

• android:textColorPrimary for dark themes (white on black)
• android:textColorSecondary for light themes (black on white)

If you apply this to the action bar's theme, you can customize the icon color.

<item name="colorControlNormal">#de000000</item>

There was a bug in appcompat-v7 up to r23 which required you to also override the native counterpart like so:

<item name="android:colorControlNormal" tools:ignore="NewApi">?colorControlNormal</item>

Help! My SearchView is a mess!

Note: This section is possibly obsolete.

Since you use the search widget which for some reason uses different back arrow (not visually, technically) than the one included with appcompat-v7, you have to set it manually in the app's theme. Support library's drawables get tinted correctly. Otherwise it would be always white.

<item name="homeAsUpIndicator">@drawable/abc_ic_ab_back_mtrl_am_alpha</item>

As for the search view text...there's no easy way. After digging through its source I found a way to get to the text view. I haven't tested this so please let me know in the comments if this didn't work.

SearchView sv = ...; // get your search view instance in onCreateOptionsMenu
// prefix identifier with "android:" if you're using native SearchView
TextView tv = sv.findViewById(getResources().getIdentifier("id/search_src_text", null, null));
tv.setTextColor(Color.GREEN); // and of course specify your own color

Bonus: Override ActionBar style and theme attributes

Appropriate styling for a default action appcompat-v7 action bar would look like this:

<!-- ActionBar vs Toolbar. -->
<style name="Widget.MyApp.ActionBar.Solid" parent="Widget.AppCompat.ActionBar.Solid">
    <item name="background">@color/actionbar_color</item> <!-- No prefix. -->
    <item name="elevation">4dp</item> <!-- No prefix. -->
    <item name="titleTextStyle">...</item> <!-- Style vs appearance. -->
</style>

<style name="Theme.MyApp" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
    <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/Widget.MyApp.ActionBar.Solid</item>
    <item name="actionBarTheme">@style/ThemeOverlay.MyApp.ActionBar</item>
    <item name="actionBarPopupTheme">@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light</item>
</style>

Here is my solution if you need to change only color of title and not color of text in search widget.

layout/toolbar.xml

<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:id="@+id/toolbar"
    android:background="@color/toolbar_bg"
    app:theme="@style/AppTheme.Toolbar"
    app:titleTextAppearance="@style/AppTheme.Toolbar.Title"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"/>

values/themes.xml

<resources>
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
        <item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
    </style>

    <style name="AppTheme.Toolbar" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.ActionBar">
        <!-- Customize color of navigation drawer icon and back arrow --> 
        <item name="colorControlNormal">@color/toolbar_icon</item>
    </style>

    <style name="AppTheme.Toolbar.Title" parent="TextAppearance.Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar.Title">
        <!-- Set proper title size -->
        <item name="android:textSize">@dimen/abc_text_size_title_material_toolbar</item>
        <!-- Set title color -->
        <item name="android:textColor">@color/toolbar_title</item>
    </style>
</resources>

In the similar way, you can set also subtitleTextAppearance.

If you are supporting API 23 and above, you can now use the titleTextColor attribute to set the Toolbar's title color.

layout/toolbar.xml

<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
        android:id="@+id/toolbar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:titleTextColor="@color/colorPrimary"
        />

MyActivity.java

Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar)
toolbar.setTitleTextColor(Color.WHITE);

Setting app:titleTextColor on my android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar works for me on Android 4.4 and on 6.0 too with com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.1.0:

<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
    android:id="@+id/toolbar"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"
    android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"
    app:titleTextColor="@android:color/white" />