Changing EditText bottom line color with appcompat v7

Finally, I have found a solution. It simply consists of overriding the value for colorControlActivated, colorControlHighlight and colorControlNormal in your app theme definition and not your edittext style. Then, think to use this theme for whatever activity you desire. Below is an example:

<style name="Theme.App.Base" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">    <item name="colorControlNormal">#c5c5c5</item>    <item name="colorControlActivated">@color/accent</item>    <item name="colorControlHighlight">@color/accent</item></style>

I felt like this needed an answer in case somebody wanted to change just a single edittext. I do it like this:

editText.getBackground().mutate().setColorFilter(ContextCompat.getColor(context, R.color.your_color), PorterDuff.Mode.SRC_ATOP);

While Laurents solution is correct, it comes with some drawbacks as described in the comments since not only the bottom line of the EditText gets tinted but the Back Button of the Toolbar, CheckBoxes etc. as well.

Luckily v22.1 of appcompat-v7 introduced some new possibilities. Now it's possible to assign a specific theme only to one view. Straight from the Changelog:

Deprecated use of app:theme for styling Toolbar. You can now use android:theme for toolbars on all API level 7 and higher devices and android:theme support for all widgets on API level 11 and higher devices.

So instead of setting the desired color in a global theme, we create a new one and assign it only to the EditText.

Example:

<style name="MyEditTextTheme">    <!-- Used for the bottom line when not selected / focused -->    <item name="colorControlNormal">#9e9e9e</item>    <!-- colorControlActivated & colorControlHighlight use the colorAccent color by default --></style>

<EditText    android:layout_width="match_parent"    android:layout_height="wrap_content"    android:theme="@style/MyEditTextTheme"/>