UITableView Setting some cells as "unselectable"

How can I set the UITableView's cell property to be unselectable? I don't want to see that blue selection box when the user taps on the cell.

To Prevent Row Selection

To completely prevent selection of the UITableViewCell, have your UITableViewDelegate implement tableView:willSelectRowAtIndexPath:. From that method you can return nil if you do not want the row to be selected.

- (NSIndexPath *)tableView:(UITableView *)tv willSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)path
{
    // Determine if row is selectable based on the NSIndexPath.

    if (rowIsSelectable) {
        return path;
    }
    return nil;
}

This prevents the row from being selected and tableView:didSelectRowAtIndexPath: from being called. Note, however, that this does not prevent the row from being highlighted.

To Prevent Row Highlighting

If you would like to prevent the row from being visually highlighted on touch, you can ensure that the cell's selectionStyle is set to UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone, or preferably you can have your UITableViewDelegate implement tableView:shouldHighlightRowAtIndexPath: as follows:

- (BOOL)tableView:(UITableView *)tv shouldHighlightRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    // Determine if row is selectable based on the NSIndexPath.

    return rowIsSelectable;
}

Set the table cell's selectionStyle property to UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone. That should prevent it from highlighting, and you can also check that property in your tableView:didSelectRowAtIndexPath:.

use this:

cell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone;

For iOS 6+ only.

You can implement the method tableView:shouldHighlightRowAtIndexPath: in your delegate. Read more here : http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/UITableViewDelegate_Protocol/Reference/Reference.html

Had this problem, too, tried everything already mentioned. The final trick, which got rid of the "blue flash" at selecting a table cell was adding this line:

self.myTableView.allowsSelection = NO;

Not sure whether it was this one line or everything combined, but as total grand result I get no more blue selection or even the blue flash. Happy!

Set cell.userInteractionEnabled = NO;

using IB is also an elegant way:

Apple says that the first thing you should do in didSelectRowAtIndexPath is to deselect the row

[tableView deselectRowAtIndexPath:[tableView indexPathForSelectedRow] animated:NO];

Then you can change the AccessoryType to be a checkmark, or none, etc. So when you enter didSelectRowAtIndexPath you could deselect the row, and if its not meant to be selected, simply don't check that row.

Table View Programming Guide

Another way is to add a couple category methods to UITableViewCell. I like this better than Sebastians (also good) answer because the way I'm building my table. I thought it might be helpful to someone else.

- (void)setSelectable:(BOOL)enabled {
    [self setSelectionStyle:UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone];
    [self setUserInteractionEnabled:enabled];
}

- (BOOL)isSelectable {
    BOOL disabled = [self selectionStyle]==UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone &&
                     [self isUserInteractionEnabled];
    return ! disabled;
}

Swift 4:
You can prevent selection and highlighting by using the UITableViewDelegate: shouldHighlightRowAt

This answer assumes you have a custom cell created named: CustomTableViewCell
And that you created a boolean inside that custom cell named: isSelectable

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, shouldHighlightRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> Bool {
    let cell = tableView.cellForRow(at: indexPath) as! CustomTableViewCell
    if cell.isSelectable == false {
        return false
    } else {
        return true
    }
}

This is the Swift version of Sebastian Celis's objc answer.

If you have designed your cell in Interface Builder, you can do this by removing the checkbox from 'User Interaction Enabled' for the tableViewCell.

Swift 5

cell.isUserInteractionEnabled = false

There is another simple way to avoid the selection appearing as blue.

Select a cell you don't want to appear as blue.

Then select the attributes inspector (the shield icon next to the ruler icon on the properties view on the side).

Then change the 'Selection' field from 'Blue' to 'None'.

Note, presumably this is still selecting, it will just not appear as selected if all you want is to avoid the UI effect.

To make certain row unselected you have to make some changes in two methods of UITableView delegate.

In the method below

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath{

after allocation of the cell, write the code below

if(indexPath.row == someCellNumber) cell.selectionStyle =UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone;

The above code will prevent highlighting the cell, if somehow user tries to selects.

in this delegate method below

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    [tableView deselectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath animated:YES];
    if(indexPath.row == someCellNumber) return;
    
    //for other cells write the code below...
}

if you don't write if(indexPath.row == someCellNumber) return; row will still be selected and there is a chance of app crash

Use tableView: willDisplayCell: forRowAtIndexPath: instead of tableView: didSelectRowAtIndexPath: to get rid of the flash that appears first time you touch the cell.

- (void) tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayCell:(UITableViewCell *)cell forRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    cell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone;
}

Swift 4:

In the cell class:

selectionStyle = .none