How to change DatePicker dialog color for Android 5.0

The reason why Neil's suggestion results in a fullscreen DatePicker is the choice of parent theme:

<!-- Theme.AppCompat.Light is not a dialog theme --><style name="DialogTheme" parent="**Theme.AppCompat.Light**">    <item name="colorAccent">@color/blue_500</item></style>

Moreover, if you go this route, you have to specify the theme while creating the DatePickerDialog:

// R.style.DialogThemenew DatePickerDialog(MainActivity.this, R.style.DialogTheme, new DatePickerDialog.OnDateSetListener() {    @Override    public void onDateSet(DatePicker view, int year, int monthOfYear, int dayOfMonth) {        //DO SOMETHING    }}, 2015, 02, 26).show();

This, in my opinion, is not good. One should try to keep the styling out of java and inside styles.xml/themes.xml.

I do agree that Neil's suggestion, with a bit of change (changing the parent theme to say, Theme.Material.Light.Dialog) will get you the desired result. But, here's the other way:

On first inspection, we come across datePickerStyle which defines things such as: headerBackground(what you are trying to change), dayOfWeekBackground, and a few other text-colors and text-styles.

Overriding this attribute in your app's theme will not work. DatePickerDialog uses a separate theme assignable by the attribute datePickerDialogTheme. So, for our changes to take affect, we must override datePickerStyle inside an overriden datePickerDialogTheme.

Here we go:

Override datePickerDialogTheme inside your app's base theme:

<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="android:Theme.Material.Light">    ....    <item name="android:datePickerDialogTheme">@style/MyDatePickerDialogTheme</item></style>

Define MyDatePickerDialogTheme. The choice of parent theme will depend on what your app's base theme is: it could be either Theme.Material.Dialog or Theme.Material.Light.Dialog:

<style name="MyDatePickerDialogTheme" parent="android:Theme.Material.Light.Dialog">    <item name="android:datePickerStyle">@style/MyDatePickerStyle</item></style>

We have overridden datePickerStyle with the style MyDatePickerStyle. The choice of parent will once again depend on what your app's base theme is: either Widget.Material.DatePicker or Widget.Material.Light.DatePicker. Define it as per your requirements:

<style name="MyDatePickerStyle" parent="@android:style/Widget.Material.Light.DatePicker">    <item name="android:headerBackground">@color/chosen_header_bg_color</item></style>

Currently, we are only overriding headerBackground which by default is set to ?attr/colorAccent (this is also why Neil suggestion works in changing the background). But there's quite a lot of customization possible:

dayOfWeekBackgrounddayOfWeekTextAppearanceheaderMonthTextAppearanceheaderDayOfMonthTextAppearanceheaderYearTextAppearanceheaderSelectedTextColoryearListItemTextAppearanceyearListSelectorColorcalendarTextColorcalendarSelectedTextColor

If you don't want this much control (customization), you don't need to override datePickerStyle. colorAccent controls most of the DatePicker's colors. So, overriding just colorAccent inside MyDatePickerDialogTheme should work:

<style name="MyDatePickerDialogTheme" parent="android:Theme.Material.Light.Dialog">    <item name="android:colorAccent">@color/date_picker_accent</item>    <!-- No need to override 'datePickerStyle' -->    <!-- <item name="android:datePickerStyle">@style/MyDatePickerStyle</item> --></style>

Overriding colorAccent gives you the added benefit of changing OK & CANCEL text colors as well. Not bad.

This way you don't have to provide any styling information to DatePickerDialog's constructor. Everything has been wired properly:

DatePickerDialog dpd = new DatePickerDialog(this, new DatePickerDialog.OnDateSetListener() {    @Override    public void onDateSet(DatePicker view, int year, int monthOfYear, int dayOfMonth) {    } }, 2015, 5, 22); dpd.show();

Give this a try.

The code

new DatePickerDialog(MainActivity.this, R.style.DialogTheme, new DatePickerDialog.OnDateSetListener() {    @Override    public void onDateSet(DatePicker view, int year, int monthOfYear, int dayOfMonth) {        //DO SOMETHING    }}, 2015, 02, 26).show();

The Style In your styles.xml file

EDIT - Changed theme to Theme.AppCompat.Light.Dialog as suggested

<style name="DialogTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.Dialog">    <item name="colorAccent">@color/blue_500</item></style>

Create a new style

<!-- Theme.AppCompat.Light.Dialog --><style name="DialogTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.Dialog">    <item name="colorAccent">@color/blue_500</item></style>

Java code:

The parent theme is the key here. Choose your colorAccent

DatePickerDialog = new DatePickerDialog(context,R.style.DialogTheme,this,now.get(Calendar.YEAR),now.get(Calendar.MONTH),now.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);

Result: