UIStatusBarStyle not working in Swift

I'm trying to change the Status Bar color in my Swift app to white, but am hitting a brick wall. I have 3 ViewControllers that are each embedded in a NavigationController (could that be the issue? I've already tried to place the code in the NavigationController class.) I've tried both of the following pieces of code in the didFinishLaunchingWithOptions of my AppDelegate.swift file but neither worked.

application.statusBarStyle = .LightContent

and

UIApplication.sharedApplication().statusBarStyle = .LightContent

All that the Docs have to say about it is that UIBarButtonStyle is an Int and gave me this enum snippet which didn't help me at all with implimentation.

enum UIStatusBarStyle : Int {
    case Default
    case LightContent
    case BlackOpaque
}

What am I missing?

You have two options.

If you want to continue manually setting the style of the status bar, continue doing what you're doing, but you'll need to add the following key to your info.plist file with a value of NO.

> View controller-based status bar appearance

Or, if you want to continue to use view controller based status bar appearance, instead of setting the application's statusBarStyle, override the preferredStatusBarStyle property in each view controller for which you'd like to specify a status bar style.

Swift 3

override var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle {
    return .lightContent
}

Swift 2

override func preferredStatusBarStyle() -> UIStatusBarStyle {
    return UIStatusBarStyle.LightContent
}

> Swift 3.0

in AppDelegate.swift didFinishLaunchingWithOptions

UIApplication.shared.statusBarStyle = .lightContent

Info.plist

View controller-based status bar appearance -> NO

> Swift 2.2

in AppDelegate.swift didFinishLaunchingWithOptions

UIApplication.sharedApplication().statusBarStyle = .LightContent

Info.plist

View controller-based status bar appearance -> NO

You have to set the:

navigationController.navigationBar.barStyle = .black

and the text will appear in white

For iOS9.x and Xcode7, just put this inside AppDelegate.swift:

func application(application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [NSObject: AnyObject]?) -> Bool {

    UINavigationBar.appearance().barStyle = .Black

} 

This will automatically turn your status bar's style to .Lightcontent for all the view controllers inside a UINavigationController.

(Also, delete View controller-based status bar appearance from Info.plist to suppress the warnings you're probably seeing too!)

In Swift 3, status bar style has changed to a computed property in UIViewController that you can override like this:

override var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle {
   return .lightContent //or default
} 

On iOS 9 the following (setStatusBarStyle) is deprecated and you will get a warning if you go that way.

UIApplication.sharedApplication().setStatusBarStyle(UIStatusBarStyle.LightContent, animated: true)

If you want all statusBars changed in a single shot try adding the following to your Info.plist. This will also make your launch-screen status bar white. While the code above won't.

<key>UIStatusBarStyle</key>
<string>UIStatusBarStyleLightContent</string>
<key>UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance</key>
<false/>

for me all above dind't work until i add:

self.navigationController?.navigationBar.barStyle = .black;

so:

1. Set UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance to YES in .plist
2. In viewDidLoad call self.setNeedsStatusBarAppearanceUpdate();
3. Override preferredStatusBarStyle
   override var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle { return .lightContent }
4. In overrided method i set also the navigationBar.barStyle so final
   for light content:
   override var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle { self.navigationController?.navigationBar.barStyle = .black;//or default return .lightContent //or default }
   and for black content use default

The source from here and here.

and if this doesn't work you can try add a UINavigationController extension:

extension UINavigationController
{
    override open var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle {
        if let lastVC = self.viewControllers.last
        {
            return lastVC.preferredStatusBarStyle
        }
        
        return .default
    }
}

Strange, using Swift 3.1 & XC8.2.1, but all of the above didn't work.

What I did, is just

extension UINavigationController
{
    override open var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle {
        get {
            return .lightContent
        }
    }
}

No Plist, no other stuff. HTH

In Swift 3.0 you can override a getter in ViewController for View controller-based status bar appearance:

override var preferredStatusBarStyle: UIStatusBarStyle {
    get { return .lightContent }
}

Don't edit your Info.plist. Add this to your ViewController.swift:

override func preferredStatusBarStyle() -> UIStatusBarStyle {
    return UIStatusBarStyle.LightContent
}

Step 1. Add to info.plist View controller-based status bar appearance -> NO

Step 2. Add code in method where you need to change status bar color:

UIApplication.shared.statusBarStyle = .lightContent //(or .default)
setNeedsStatusBarAppearanceUpdate()

Key line of code: setNeedsStatusBarAppearanceUpdate()