Is it possible to change UITabBarItem badge color

Question

I want to change background color of UITabBarItem badge but can't find any resource on how to make it.

Answer 1

UITabBarItem has this available since iOS 10.

var badgeColor: UIColor? { get set }

It's also available via appearence.

if #available(iOS 10, *) {
   UITabBarItem.appearance().badgeColor = .green
}

reference docs: https://developer.apple.com/reference/uikit/uitabbaritem/1648567-badgecolor

Answer 2

Changing the badge-color is now natively supported in iOS 10 and later using the badgeColor property inside your UITabBarItem. See the apple docs for more infos on the property.

Example:

• Swift 3: myTab.badgeColor = UIColor.blue
• Objective-C: [myTab setBadgeColor:[UIColor blueColor]];

Answer 3

I wrote this piece of code for my app, but I have only tested it in iOS 7.

for (UIView* tabBarButton in self.tabBar.subviews) {
    for (UIView* badgeView in tabBarButton.subviews) {
        NSString* className = NSStringFromClass([badgeView class]);

        // looking for _UIBadgeView
        if ([className rangeOfString:@"BadgeView"].location != NSNotFound) {
            for (UIView* badgeSubview in badgeView.subviews) {
                NSString* className = NSStringFromClass([badgeSubview class]);

                // looking for _UIBadgeBackground
                if ([className rangeOfString:@"BadgeBackground"].location != NSNotFound) {
                    @try {
                        [badgeSubview setValue:[UIImage imageNamed:@"YourCustomImage.png"] forKey:@"image"];
                    }
                    @catch (NSException *exception) {}
                }

                if ([badgeSubview isKindOfClass:[UILabel class]]) {
                    ((UILabel *)badgeSubview).textColor = [UIColor greenColor];
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

You're only able to update the badge background with an image, not a color. I have also exposed the badge label if you wanted to update that in some way.

Its important to note that this code must be called after setting the tabBarItem.badgeValue!

EDIT: 4/14/14

The above code will work in iOS 7 when called anywhere. To get it working in iOS 7.1 call it in the view controllers -viewWillLayoutSubviews.

EDIT: 12/22/14

Here's an updated snippet which I'm currently using. I put the code in a category extension for simplicity.

- (void)badgeViews:(void (^)(UIView* badgeView, UILabel* badgeLabel, UIView* badgeBackground))block {
    if (block) {
        for (UIView* tabBarButton in self.subviews) {
            for (UIView* badgeView in tabBarButton.subviews) {
                NSString* className = NSStringFromClass([badgeView class]);

                if ([className rangeOfString:@"BadgeView"].location != NSNotFound) {
                    UILabel* badgeLabel;
                    UIView* badgeBackground;

                    for (UIView* badgeSubview in badgeView.subviews) {
                        NSString* className = NSStringFromClass([badgeSubview class]);

                        if ([badgeSubview isKindOfClass:[UILabel class]]) {
                            badgeLabel = (UILabel *)badgeSubview;

                        } else if ([className rangeOfString:@"BadgeBackground"].location != NSNotFound) {
                            badgeBackground = badgeSubview;
                        }
                    }

                    block(badgeView, badgeLabel, badgeBackground);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Then when you're ready to call it, it'll look like this.

[self.tabBar badgeViews:^(UIView *badgeView, UILabel *badgeLabel, UIView *badgeBackground) {

}];

EDIT: 11/16/15

It's been brought to my attention that some people need a little more clarity on what's happening in this code. The for loops are searching for a few views which are not publicly accessible. By checking if the views class name contains a part of the expected name, it's ensuring to reach the intended view while not setting off any possible red flags by Apple. Once everything has been located, a block is executed with easy access to these views.

It's noteworthy that the possibility exists for this code to stop working in a future iOS update. For example these internal views could one day acquire different class names. However the chances of that are next to none since even internally Apple rarely refactors classes to this nature. But even if they were to, it would be something along the title of UITabBarBadgeView, which would still reach the expected point in code. Being that iOS9 is well out the door and this code is still working as intended, you can expect this problem to never arise.