Action Bar menu item text color

How to change text color of menu item title. I tried to change it as below

<style name="Theme.Kanku.ActionBar.TitleTextStyle" parent="@android:style/TextAppearance.Holo.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
    <item name="android:textColor">@color/white</item>
</style>

But it change color only of Action Bar title text, but not menu item text.

Try something like this :

<style name="ThemeName" parent="@style/Theme.Sherlock.Light">
    <item name="actionMenuTextColor">@color/white</item>
    <item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/white</item>
</style>

I tried several things but nothing worked for me. Finally this did the trick:

<style name="your_theme" parent="your_parent">
    <item name="android:itemTextAppearance">@style/TextAppearance</item>
</style>

<style name="TextAppearance">
    <item name="android:textColor">@android:color/black</item>
</style>

I didn't use Sherlock themes. This worked for Holo.Light.DarkActionBar.

After trying all of these and having them not work, I went about it programmatically like this:

public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.changeip_card_menu, menu); 
    for(int i = 0; i < menu.size(); i++) {
        MenuItem item = menu.getItem(i);
        SpannableString spanString = new SpannableString(menu.getItem(i).getTitle().toString());
        spanString.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.WHITE), 0, spanString.length(), 0); //fix the color to white
        item.setTitle(spanString);
    }
    return true;
}

This will work dynamically every time. In this case, the text color is changed to white. Simpy, change Color.WHITE to Color.whatever-color-you-want to change it to whatever color you want.

To update the menu item text color you need to make changes in themes.xml. The following answer is for sherlock.actionbar. In your themes.xml file add following lines:

<style name="Theme.Mytheme" parent="@style/Theme.Sherlock">
    <item name="actionMenuTextColor">@color/mycolor</item>     
    <item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/mycolor</item>
</style> 

this worked for me:

<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="android:textAppearanceLargePopupMenu">@style/MyOverflowItemCollor</item>       
</style>

<style name="MyOverflowItemCollor" parent="android:TextAppearance.Holo.Widget.PopupMenu.Large">
	<item name="android:textColor">#ffffff</item>
</style> 

If AppTheme is android:Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar, then you need to set custom actionBarWidgetTheme in order to get action menu style changed. Like this:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="android:actionBarWidgetTheme">@style/ActionBarWidget</item>
    <item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/{custom_menu_item_text_color}</item>
</style>

<style name="MenuItemText">
    <item name="android:textColor">@color/{custom_menu_item_text_color}</item>
</style>

<style name="ActionBarWidget" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo">
    <item name="android:itemTextAppearance">@style/MenuItemText</item>
</style>

please use the below code it works

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
    <!-- Customize your theme here. -->

    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorWhite</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/colorWhite</item>
</style>

Add following line of code into your style.xml file that change option menu text color into black:

 <style name="optionMenuTextApearance" parent="@android:style/TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item">
    <item name="android:textColor">@color/colorBlack</item>
</style>

Then add this one line code into your theme to change color of option menu text:

        <item name="android:itemTextAppearance">@style/optionMenuTextApearance</item>

It works for me,Thanks.

If you use DarkActionBar add below two lines in your style.xml

1. @color/green
2. @color/green

Complete code is given below

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>

    <item name="actionMenuTextColor">@color/green</item>
    <item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/green</item>
</style>

you can change the action item color simply by following line

<item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/selected_text_color</item>

you can apply like this.

<style name="your_theme" parent="your_parent">
<item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/selected_text_color</item>
</style>

In my case

<style name="MyTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
  <item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/selected_text_color</item>
  </style>

You can set color programmatically. Hope it help you.

private static void setMenuTextColor(final Context context, final Toolbar toolbar, final int menuResId, final int colorRes) {
    toolbar.post(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            View settingsMenuItem =  toolbar.findViewById(menuResId);
            if (settingsMenuItem instanceof TextView) {
                if (DEBUG) {
                    Log.i(TAG, "setMenuTextColor textview");
                }
                TextView tv = (TextView) settingsMenuItem;
                tv.setTextColor(ContextCompat.getColor(context, colorRes));
            } else { // you can ignore this branch, because usually there is not the situation
                Menu menu = toolbar.getMenu();
                MenuItem item = menu.findItem(menuResId);
                SpannableString s = new SpannableString(item.getTitle());
                s.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(ContextCompat.getColor(context, colorRes)), 0, s.length(), 0);
                item.setTitle(s);
            }

        }
    });
}