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

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 SearchViewTextView 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);