How to Turn Off Address Bar Color Effect in Safari for iPhone & iPad
Safari for iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 received a pretty significant visual overhaul, and one very obvious change is that the Safari browser screens tab bar and navigation/search bar now have a color effect that tints the Safari interface towards the color of the webpage in view.
If you’d like to disable the Safari color tinting effect on iPhone or iPad, you’ll find it’s easy to do so.
How to Turn Off Safari Color Tinting on iPhone & iPad
The color tab bar feature are in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 or later, earlier versions will not have the settings option:
- Open the Settings app on iPhone or iPad
- Go to “Safari” settings
- Uncheck the option for “Allow Website Tinting” (iOS) or “Show Color in Tab Bar” (iPadOS)
- Return to Safari to find the color effect disabled
You can reverse the change at any point by re-enabling the tinting option in settings, if you want to have the color back.
Disabling the color effect and moving the Safari Search/URL bar back to the top of the screen are the two most obvious ways to make Safari more closely resemble how it used to, and some users who are creatures of habit or who simply don’t like the user interface changes may be happy to ditch the color and put the URL bar where it has always been – at the top of the iPhone screen.
This obviously focuses on the iPhone and iPad, but you can also disable the color effect for the Safari tab bar on Mac if you’re not a fan of it there either.
What do you think of the color effect in the Safari tab / toolbar? If you have a strong opinion on the matter one way or the other, let us know in the comments.
It seems completely pointless and it’s sometimes worrying. If turns red or orange it looks like a warning.
this strikes me as a change just for the sake of saying that something has changed. Apple is clearly grasping at straws to make “improvements” on products that are near optimal. Perhaps they should take the advice of “Don’t just do something, just put your hands in your pockets and hold still.”
I do not like the colored tabs in Safari on my Mac at all. Please update your article to include how to disable the feature on Mac. I saw another’s comments and your reply on how to do this, but others may not scroll down to see it. Thanks!
I cannot understand how Apple came to add these garish colors, a total reversal of the flat theme of recent years. Oh I do miss Steve Jobs.
Absolutely weird how Apple added these garish tints – total reversal of flat elegant visuals these last few years.
Best tip ever
So how does one: “you can also disable the color effect for the Safari tab bar on Mac if you’re not a fan of it there either.”
You can disable the same feature in Safari for Mac by going to Safari menu > Preferences > Tabs > Show color in tab bar. We’ll cover this in another article shortly.
thanks for your prompt reply
My browser went from white with black print to black with white print. I hate it. I read what to do (I have iOS 15.4.1) but after going to safari in settings there isn’t the options listed to uncheck.
Thoughts?