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The TextField widget in Flutter is one of the most used widgets. It is used to get input from users. But sometimes you may want to change its default hint text color. So in this tutorial, we’ll see how to change hint text color in Flutter for TextField.

Here’s how it looks after changing color:

change hint text color in flutter

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Steps to change hint text color in Flutter

You can change hint text color in Flutter, by adding style to the TextField widget. Basically, you provide the styling instructions by using the InputDecoration widget.

Here is the step by step instructions:

Step 1: Locate the file where you have placed the TextField widget.

Step 2: Inside the TextField widget, add the decoration parameter and assign the InputDecoration widget.

Step 3: Inside the InputDecoration widget, add the hintStyle parameter and assign the TextStyle widget.

Step 4: Inside the TextStyle, add color parameter and set the color of your choice.

Step 5: Similarly, add the labelStyle parameter (below hintStyle) and set the color.

Code Example

TextField(
  decoration: InputDecoration(
    hintText: "Name",
    hintStyle: TextStyle(color: Colors.purpleAccent), //<-- SEE HERE
    labelStyle: TextStyle(color: Colors.purpleAccent), //<-- SEE HERE
  ),
)

Changing hint text color globally

In the previous section, we saw how to change the TextField hint text color at the page level. but sometimes you might be looking to have a common style across all the pages of your app. In that case, you might want to change the hint text color of the TextField widget at the app level.

You can change the TextField hint text color globally by defining the inputDecorationTheme and then adding the hintStyle and labelStyle widget.

Here’s how you do it:

Step 1: Locate the MaterialApp widget.

Step 2: Inside the MaterialApp, add the theme parameter with ThemeData class assigned.

Step 3: Inside the ThemeData add the inputDecorationTheme parameter and then assign the InputDecorationTheme.

Step 4: Inside the InputDecorationTheme add the hintStyle parameter and then assign the TextStyle.

Step 5:Inside the TextStyle add the color parameter and set its color.

Code Example

MaterialApp(
  title: 'Flutter Demo',
  theme: ThemeData(
    primarySwatch: Colors.blue,
    inputDecorationTheme: const InputDecorationTheme(
 hintStyle: TextStyle(color: Colors.redAccent), //<-- SEE HERE     
 labelStyle: TextStyle(color: Colors.redAccent), //<-- SEE HERE
  ),
  home: ChangeTextFieldBorderColorDemo(),
);

Output

change hint text color in flutter at app level

Different ways of adding color

There are main three ways you can add color to the TextField hint text widget.

  1. Colors.red: This is used to define from the predefined colors.
  2. Color(0xffF02E65): This is used to have a custom color.
  3. Color.fromARGB(255, 66, 125, 145): This is used to have color from the alpha, red, green, and blue color combination.

Code Example

TextField(
  decoration: InputDecoration(
    hintText: "Name",
    hintStyle: TextStyle(color: Colors.purpleAccent),
    labelStyle: TextStyle(color: Colors.purpleAccent),
  ),
),
TextField(
  decoration: InputDecoration(
    hintText: "Email",
    hintStyle: TextStyle(color: Color(0xffF02E65)),
    labelStyle: TextStyle(color: Color(0xffF02E65)),
  ),
),
TextField(
  decoration: InputDecoration(
    hintText: "Email",
    hintStyle: TextStyle(color: Color.fromARGB(255, 66, 125, 145)),
    labelStyle: TextStyle(color: Color.fromARGB(255, 66, 125, 145)),
  ),
)

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to change hint text color in Flutter with practical examples, we first saw how to change the color at the page level and then explored the way to change color at the app level. Finally, we also learned what are the different ways to add colors.

Would you like to check other interesting Flutter tutorials?

Change TextField Border Color in Flutter  – RIGHT Way [2022]
Change Drawer Background Color in Flutter  – The EASY Way [2022]