UIStatusBarStyle not working in Swift

Question

I'm trying to change the Status Bar color in my Swift app to white, but am hitting a brick wall. I have 3 ViewControllers that are each embedded in a NavigationController (could that be the issue? I've already tried to place the code in the NavigationController class.) I've tried both of the following pieces of code in the didFinishLaunchingWithOptions of my AppDelegate.swift file but neither worked.

application.statusBarStyle = .LightContent

and

UIApplication.sharedApplication().statusBarStyle = .LightContent

All that the Docs have to say about it is that UIBarButtonStyle is an Int and gave me this enum snippet which didn't help me at all with implimentation.

enum UIStatusBarStyle : Int {
    case Default
    case LightContent
    case BlackOpaque
}

What am I missing?

Solution 1

You have two options.

If you want to continue manually setting the style of the status bar, continue doing what you're doing, but you'll need to add the following key to your info.plist file with a value of NO.

View controller-based status bar appearance

Or, if you want to continue to use view controller based status bar appearance, instead of setting the application's statusBarStyle, override the preferredStatusBarStyle property in each view controller for which you'd like to specify a status bar style.

Swift 3

override var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle {
    return .lightContent
}

Swift 2

override func preferredStatusBarStyle() -> UIStatusBarStyle {
    return UIStatusBarStyle.LightContent
}

Solution 2

Swift 3.0

in AppDelegate.swift didFinishLaunchingWithOptions

UIApplication.shared.statusBarStyle = .lightContent

Info.plist

View controller-based status bar appearance -> NO

Swift 2.2

in AppDelegate.swift didFinishLaunchingWithOptions

UIApplication.sharedApplication().statusBarStyle = .LightContent

Info.plist

View controller-based status bar appearance -> NO

Solution 3

You have to set the:

navigationController.navigationBar.barStyle = .black

and the text will appear in white

Solution 4

For iOS9.x and Xcode7, just put this inside AppDelegate.swift:

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

    UINavigationBar.appearance().barStyle = .Black

} 

This will automatically turn your status bar's style to .Lightcontent for all the view controllers inside a UINavigationController.

(Also, delete View controller-based status bar appearance from Info.plist to suppress the warnings you're probably seeing too!)

Solution 5

In Swift 3, status bar style has changed to a computed property in UIViewController that you can override like this:

override var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle {
   return .lightContent //or default
} 

View more solutions

Comments

[Rahul]

I have tried this code... but I only get the white status bar in first screen.. I am not getting the status bar for the rest of the screens :(.. any help?

[StackUnderflow]

You have to set the "View controller-based status bar appearance" setting in your plist to YES.

[Sam Holmes]

That's only if you want to use a view controller based status bar appearance.

[1b0t]

thank you. There seems to be a serious bug in iOS9. This was the only way I could turn the status bar in the initial VC white. I tried everything. I'll file an radar.

[Pandey_Laxman]

preferredStatusBarStyle returning UIStatusBarStyleDefault but not updating lightcontent to darkcontent for specific viewcontroller . After self.navigationController.navigationBar.barStyle=UIBarStyleD‌​efault; in viewWillAppear worked for me . Hope this comment will help others.

[Svitlana]

Thanks! There was nothing helped even this override func preferredStatusBarStyle() -> UIStatusBarStyle { return UIStatusBarStyle.LightContent } this really helps: navigationController.navigationBar.barStyle = .BlackTranslucent navigationController.navigationBar.translucent = true

[hsusmita]

Thank! You saved my day. However, BlackTranslucent is deprecated. Hence, I used navigationController.navigationBar.barStyle = .Black

[Jay Mayu]

This is the perfect answer :)

[Mehul]

Perfect answer. Short and sweet.

[auco]

sorry, this might be the simplest answer, but it's definitely not the BEST: because it just sets this one style to all and any viewControllers in the app. The behaviour has been introduced to enable finer control and apply different settings based on different view controllers (e.g. mixing light and dark contents).

[Bill Chan]

The .plist approach is correct, but setStatusBarStyle() is not necessary. 'setStatusBarStyle(_:animated:)' was deprecated in iOS 9.0: Use -[UIViewController preferredStatusBarStyle]

[GuiSoySauce]

@BillChan thanks for commenting but please read the answer gain. I already explained 'setStatusBarStyle' was deprecated. You should use preferredStatusBarStyle if you want one or another viewControllers changed. The plist approach is for who wants all viewControllers changed in a single shot. There is no right or wrong here. Just a matter of what you need to achieve.

[stevo.mit]

in iOS 10 (Swift 3.0) its no longer method but property. See: stackoverflow.com/questions/38862208/…

[Despotovic]

No comment for navigation bar style... but in Swift 3, Xcode 8 - this was the only solution that worked for me.

[n13]

It's bizarre - not what the Apple docs say, but it works. Tried a bunch of other ways, including have a UIViewController based status bar, none of them worked.

[Chris Allinson]

UIStatusBarStyle = UIStatusBarStyleLightContent (in .plist) helped my app launch with white status bar text ... Thanks!!!

[Lukasz 'Severiaan' Grela]

The only drawback I've noticed is that with all those steps it changes but without animation

[Oubaida AlQuraan]

just for one screen

[brycejl]

Note that the UIStatusBarStyle has been changed to ".black" (lowercase B) in Swift 3

[Bhavin_m]

It's perfectly working with override var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle { return .lightContent }. You just have to write this line in viewDidLoad for wrok well. Make sure keep View controller-based status bar appearance = YES with this solution.

[zeeshan]

Works for Swift 4.2 too.

[raistlin]

seems like an overkill... just tried it and worked like this in Info.plist file: 1. Status bar style -> UIStatusBarStyleLightContent 2. View controller-based status bar appearance -> NO

[Leon]

Making this change made my back button disappear.