How do I disable the navigation bar shadow in iOS 6 for navigation bars with custom background images?

It seems in iOS 6, a drop shadow is automatically added to the navigation bar even when you set a custom background image. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the case with iOS 5 as when I test the same code in the iOS 5 and 6 sim, the shadow appears in iOS 6 but not 5.

Does anyone know anything about this? Or how to enable/disable it?

Place this in your AppDelegate

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setShadowImage:[UIImage new]];
// is IOS 7 and later
[[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackgroundImage:[UIImage new] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];

This is what did it for me. Hope it helps!

Swift version with updates from comments

    UINavigationBar.appearance().shadowImage = UIImage()
    UINavigationBar.appearance().setBackgroundImage(UIImage(), forBarMetrics: .Default)

I know this has been solved with more complicated answers above, but this is the quickest and easiest way I hid the shadow under the navigation bar.

self.navigationController.navigationBar.clipsToBounds = YES;

Note from the Apple dev docs on the subject of the shadowImage property:

> Discussion: The default value is nil, which corresponds to the default > shadow image. When non-nil, this property represents a custom shadow > image to show instead of the default. For a custom shadow image to be > shown, a custom background image must also be set with the > setBackgroundImage:forBarMetrics: method. If the default background > image is used, then the default shadow image will be used regardless > of the value of this property.

So to use the nil UIImage hack you must also be setting a custom nav bar background image. This can be a nil image too, which results in a nice flat, clean 'metro' style nav bar :

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setShadowImage:[[UIImage alloc] init]];
        [[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackgroundImage:[[UIImage alloc] init] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];

Also you can try this:

controller.navigationBar.shadowImage = [[[UIImage alloc] init] autorelease];

controller is a UINavigationController.

General, non-NDA-infringing answer:

If you don't want something sticking out of a layer, mask the layer to its bounds.

[self.layer setMasksToBounds:YES];

Set the height explicitly to 44 (or 32 for landscape on iPhone) if that doesn't work on its own.

Setting the shadowImage to a null image does work, however, the way the solution is presented results in adding a property if the OS is earlier than iOS 6.

A better way to do something that is dependent on the existence of a property or method is:

if ([self.navigationController.navigationBar
respondsToSelector:@selector(shadowImage)]) {
self.navigationController.navigationBar.shadowImage = [[[UIImage alloc] init] autorelease];
}

There are two possible solutions, the second of which is mentioned in other answers.

1. Add a single, transparent, pixel at the bottom of your navigation bar background image, making it 45pt tall. This disables the shadows in iOS 6.

2. Implement the following code:

    // Omit the conditional if minimum OS is iOS 6 or above
    if ([UINavigationBar instancesRespondToSelector:@selector(setShadowImage:)]) {
        [[UINavigationBar appearance] setShadowImage:[[UIImage alloc] init]];
    }
   

Source: Advanced Appearance Customization on iOS, @27:15

Since self.navigationController.navigationBar.shadowImage = [[UIImage alloc] init]; not working, I've found an easy and workable way to remove the shadow of UINavigationBar in both iOS 6 AND iOS 5. Hope people who need can see this post.

All you have to do is prepare one background image that the height is 1 pixel larger than your navigation bar height (e.g. 320×45 for default UINavigationBar, 640×90 for 2x of course).

Then just use [[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackgroundImage: ...], you will find shadow is replaced by that 1 pixel. cheers!

BTW I found Twitter has done the exactly same thing, if you unzip Twitter.ipa and look into bg_nav_bar_events_dark.png, the size is 320×47. They made their own shadow for 3 pixels :)

I cannot comment so I'll add my information here.

Perhaps the above suggestions worked in the beta, but it does not seem to be the case now.

self.navigationController.navigationBar.shadowImage = [[UIImage alloc] init];

The above does not work, neither do any of the other similar answers above. I have tried them all.

Clipping to bounds does work but doesn't give the result I want as I'd like other views to hang outside the nav bar.

I came across this SO question when trying to get nav bars to look the same between iOS6 and iOS7.

The answer I found worked was simply to use:

    NSMutableDictionary *titleBarAttributes = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithDictionary: [[UINavigationBar appearance] titleTextAttributes]];
    [titleBarAttributes setValue:[NSNumber numberWithInt:0] forKey:UITextAttributeTextShadowOffset];
    [[UINavigationBar appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:titleBarAttributes];

ie: set the shadow offset to zero.

How about the alternative way:

UINavigationBar.appearance().barStyle = .Black

For the dark navigation bars iOS doesn't show the shadow.

I had the same problem and I've solved it by following:

CustomNavBar *navBar = (CustomNavBar *)self.navigationController.navigationBar;
        [navBar setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"navigation_bar_gray.png"] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
        navBar.shadowImage = [[UIImage alloc]init]; // this is what acctually removed the shadow under navigation bar 

In Swift 3.0 this would look like this

UINavigationBar.appearance().shadowImage = UIImage ()
UINavigationBar.appearance().setBackgroundImage(UIImage(), for: .default)