How do I change the title of the back button on a Navigation Bar

Question

Currently the left bar button default value is the title of the view that loaded the current one  in other words the view to be shown when the button is pressed  back button    I want to change the text shown on the button to something else   I tried putting the following line of code in the view controller s viewDidLoad method but it doesn t seem to work   self navigationItem leftBarButtonItem title     Log Out     What should I do   Thanks

User · Answer

For Swift          Rename back button     let backButton   UIBarButtonItem          title   Back           style  UIBarButtonItemStyle Plain     Note   Bordered is deprecated         target  nil          action  nil           self navigationController  navigationBar topItem  backBarButtonItem   backButton

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Swift version   In your child ViewController   override func viewWillAppear animated  Bool        super viewWillAppear animated      self navigationController  navigationBar backItem  title    TEXT

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Stan s answer was the best one  But it also have a problem  when you use the controller with a Tab Bar and change the controller s title  you could change the Tab Bar s title too So the best answer is change the view controller navigationItem title only and use the view controller navigationItem title in the function  Answer is here  With ARC and add them into view s viewDidLoad     static NSString   back button title   Back     or whatever u want   if    view controller navigationItem title isEqualToString back button title        UILabel  custom title view     UILabel alloc  initWithFrame CGRectZero       custom title view text   view controller navigationItem title     original title     custom title view font    UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize 20       custom title view backgroundColor    UIColor clearColor       custom title view textColor    UIColor whiteColor       custom title view shadowColor    UIColor colorWithRed 0 0 green 0 0 blue 0 0 alpha 0 5       custom title view shadowOffset   CGSizeMake 0  -1         custom title view sizeToFit        view controller navigationItem titleView   custom title view      view controller navigationItem title   back button title        In myself use  I make it a function like this  just have the feature with one line code in the viewDidLoad      void makeSubViewHaveBackButton  UIViewController   view controller    static NSString   back button title   Back     or whatever u want   if    view controller navigationItem title isEqualToString back button title        UILabel  custom title view     UILabel alloc  initWithFrame CGRectZero       custom title view text   view controller navigationItem title     original title     custom title view font    UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize 20       custom title view backgroundColor    UIColor clearColor       custom title view textColor    UIColor whiteColor       custom title view shadowColor    UIColor colorWithRed 0 0 green 0 0 blue 0 0 alpha 0 5       custom title view shadowOffset   CGSizeMake 0  -1         custom title view sizeToFit        view controller navigationItem titleView   custom title view      view controller navigationItem title   back button title

User · Answer

Maybe I m being over simplistic but From Apple s documentation the wording is       If a custom bar button item is not specified by either of the view controllers  a default back button is used and its title is set to the value of the title property of the previous view controller   that is  the view controller one level down on the stack     The solution marked correct above sets a default button item from the parent controller  It s the right answer  but I m solving the issue by changing self title property of the UIViewController right before pushing the new controller onto the NavigationController stack   This automatically updates the back button s title on the next controller  and as long as you set self title back to what it should be in viewWillAppear I can t see this method causing too many problems

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This works for me in Swift 4 and iOS 11  Most commonly I need to do this when the user taps on a row in a table view and a new view controller is pushed onto the navigation stack  Usually I want the back button to be the name or some attribute of the object represented by the row that was tapped  So I usually do this in didSelectRowAt    like this    override func tableView   tableView  UITableView  didSelectRowAt indexPath  IndexPath         let object      get the object this row represents      let backButton   UIBarButtonItem       backButton title   object name    or whatever     self navigationItem backBarButtonItem   backButton         now show or segue to the next view controller

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In ChildVC this worked for me     self navigationController navigationBar topItem title     Back     Works in Swift too   self navigationController  navigationBar topItem  title    Back

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Im new in iOS but I will provide my very simple answer of overriding the navigation controller class  I have simple override the push and pop methods and save the title of previous view controller  Sorry for pasting in js block  Was little confused how to past it in normal code block     x000D   x000D   import  MyCustomNavController h  x000D   x000D   x000D   implementation MyCustomNavController   x000D   x000D      NSString   savedTitle  x000D    x000D   x000D  -  void pushViewController  UIViewController   viewController animated  BOOL animated withBackBtnTitle  NSString   title   x000D       savedTitle   self topViewController title  x000D   x000D      self topViewController title   title  x000D       super pushViewController viewController animated animated   x000D    x000D   x000D  -  UIViewController   popViewControllerAnimated  BOOL animated   x000D   x000D       self viewControllers objectAtIndex self viewControllers count - 2  title    savedTitle  x000D      return  super popViewControllerAnimated animated   x000D    x000D   x000D   end x000D   x000D   x000D

User · Answer

This works for me as a  simplified  version of previous posted answers   UIBarButtonItem  backButton     UIBarButtonItem alloc  init    backButton title     Go Back    self navigationItem backBarButtonItem   backButton    Remember to put the code inside the parent view controller  e g  the view that has your table view or UITableViewController   not the child or detail view  e g  UIViewController    You can easily localize the back button string like this   backButton title   NSLocalizedString   Back Title   nil

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We have two VC s A and B   If you want to change title in B  write this code in A  -  IBAction goToBViewController  UIButton   sender        BViewController  vc    self storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier   VC        UIBarButtonItem  newBackButton     UIBarButtonItem alloc  initWithTitle   Your title here                                                                    style UIBarButtonItemStylePlain                                                                  target nil                                                                  action nil         self navigationItem  setBackBarButtonItem newBackButton        self navigationController pushViewController vc animated NO        Swift 4 1 Xcode 9 4  let secondViewController   self storyboard  instantiateViewController withIdentifier   VC    let newBackButton   UIBarButtonItem init title   Your title here   style  UIBarButtonItemStyle plain  target  nil  action  nil  navigationController  navigationBar topItem  backBarButtonItem   newBackButton navigationController  pushViewController secondViewController   animated  true

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I know  the question is very old  but I found a nice solution   UIBarButtonItem  barButton     UIBarButtonItem alloc  init   barButton title     Custom Title   self navigationController navigationBar topItem backBarButtonItem   barButton    Works from childView  Tested with iOS 7

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iOS 11  solution - Doesn t require to create backbutton again  Set backButtonTitle as a space on the previous screen     If navigation is from A - gt  B  set in A s  viewDidLoad   navigationItem backButtonTitle    quot   quot

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Use below line of code    UIBarButtonItem  newBackButton     UIBarButtonItem alloc  initWithTitle   hello                                   style UIBarButtonItemStylePlain                                 target nil                                 action nil    self navigationItem leftBarButtonItems    NSArray alloc  initWithObjects newBackButton  nil    self navigationItem leftItemsSupplementBackButton   YES

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This should be placed in the method that calls the ViewController titled  NewTitle   Right before the push or popViewController statement   UIBarButtonItem  newBackButton              UIBarButtonItem alloc  initWithTitle   NewTitle                                            style UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered                                          target nil                                          action nil     self navigationItem  setBackBarButtonItem newBackButton    newBackButton release

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PROBLEM   Back  text in the navigation bar can not be replaced   REASON   Back  label is set in the navigation bar after pushing a view because the  title attribute in the parent view controller was set to nil  or not initialised    ONE SOLUTION  If you set the self title  Whatever     you will see that instead of  Back  will appear  Whatever     after pushing new view controller

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self navigationController navigationBar backItem title     TEXT    And in Swift   self navigationController  navigationBar backItem  title    TEXT

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ok  I personally hated all of these options  Therefore I came up with my own   Based on the information I have seen  It appears that the Previous view controller is in control of its own  Back  button that will be presented on the pushed view controller   I have created a Lazy Load method for the navigationItem on the controller that wants the changed Back Button   Mine is an Invite Buyer Controller  Invite Buyer is the text that is set by default   but the back button needed to be Invite  Here is the code that I used to create the back button    I placed this code in the top of the Controller s Implementatio   m  file and it overrode the super s method automatically   -  UINavigationItem   navigationItem      UINavigationItem  item    super navigationItem       if  item    nil  amp  amp  item backBarButtonItem    nil                item backBarButtonItem      UIBarButtonItem alloc  init  autorelease           item backBarButtonItem title     Invite              return item      I feel this is a much more elegant way to accomplish this   I place this code in one place  and it automatically gets populated when needed   No need to call the code before each push request   Hope this helps

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This work better for me  Try      self navigationController navigationBar topItem backBarButtonItem     UIBarButtonItem alloc   initWithTitle   Back  style UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target nil action nil

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Here is the documentation for backBarButtonItem       When this navigation item is immediately below the top item in the   stack  the navigation controller derives the back button for the   navigation bar from this navigation item         If you want to   specify a custom image or title for the back button  you can assign a   custom bar button item  with your custom title or image  to this   property instead     View Controller A  the  parent  view controller    self title     Really Long Title   UIBarButtonItem  backButton     UIBarButtonItem alloc  initWithTitle   Short  style UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered target nil action nil   self navigationItem backBarButtonItem   backButton    When any other view controller B is on top of the navigation stack  and A is right below it  B s back button will have the title  Short

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UIBarButtonItem  btnBack     UIBarButtonItem alloc                                     initWithTitle   Back                                      style UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered                                    target self                                    action  selector OnClick btnBack         self navigationItem leftBarButtonItem   btnBack       btnBack release

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I ve found that it is best to change the title of the current view controller in the navigation stack to the desired text of the back button before pushing to the next view controller   For instance  self navigationItem title     Desired back button text    self navigationController pushViewController QAVC animated NO     Then in the viewDidAppear set the title back to the desired title for the original VC  Voila

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None of the solutions explained here worked for me  So what I did was remove the title from the scene where I came from in the following way   self title         So when new scene is presented the back text does not appear   I absoluty agree that this is not a clear solution at all  but worked and none of the explained worked for me

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Most of solutions kills the original style of BackButton  The left arrowed bar button  while adding a usual button with desired title  So to keep the original style there are 2 ways  1st  To use undocumented button style  110 or something like that  which I prefer not to do  But if you want you could find how to do it here  on stackoverflow  2nd  To use I the Trenskow s idea  I liked it and I use it a bit changed  Instead of overriding -  NSString  title I ve decided to keep the original title in the following way  which allows me to use nib s titles as well as given title at push state btw    -  void viewDidLoad        super viewDidLoad       static NSString   backButtonTitle   Back     or whatever u want      if    self title isEqualToString backButtonTitle             UILabel  customTitleView     UILabel alloc  initWithFrame CGRectZero           customTitleView text   self title     original title         customTitleView font    UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize 20           customTitleView backgroundColor    UIColor clearColor           customTitleView textColor    UIColor whiteColor           customTitleView shadowColor    UIColor colorWithRed 0 0 green 0 0 blue 0 0 alpha 0 5           customTitleView shadowOffset   CGSizeMake 0  -1             customTitleView sizeToFit            self navigationItem titleView    customTitleView autorelease           self title   backButtonTitle             This solution works good and it looks native  Also if use it in the viewDidLoad method it prevents execution more then 1 time  Also I ve tried a Jessedc s solution but it looks bad  It causes visible to user title bar change on the fly from original to BackButton s desired and back

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In Swift iOS8  the following worked for me   let backButton   UIBarButtonItem        title   Back Button Text         style  UIBarButtonItemStyle Bordered        target  nil        action  nil     self navigationController navigationBar topItem backBarButtonItem   backButton    Ported from Felipe s answer

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I ve found  that the easiest way to change the name of the back button is to set the view controllers title to the title of the back button  and then replacing the titleView in the view controllers navigation item to a custom label with it s real name   Like this   CustomViewController m   implementation CustomViewController  -  NSString  title       return   Back Button Title      -  void viewDidLoad        super viewDidLoad       UILabel  customTitleView     UILabel alloc  initWithFrame CGRectZero       customTitleView text     Navigation Bar Title       customTitleView font    UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize 20       customTitleView backgroundColor    UIColor clearColor       customTitleView textColor    UIColor whiteColor       customTitleView shadowColor    UIColor colorWithRed 0 0 green 0 0 blue 0 0 alpha 0 5       customTitleView shadowOffset   CGSizeMake 0  -1         customTitleView sizeToFit        self navigationItem titleView    customTitleView autorelease       end   This will make your title in UINavigationBar look as if it was native  Giving the view controller the ability to have seperated title and back button title   In the case of view controller A and B  A is responsible for telling how it s back button should look  while B is displayed   EDIT  This also maintains the back button native look  The left arrowed bar button item

User · Answer

Ok  here is the way  If you have a view controller  first  and you navigate another view controller  second  by pushing a button or etc  you need to do some work   First you need to create a BarButtonItem in  second  view controller s ViewDidLoad method like this       UIBarButtonItem  btnBack     UIBarButtonItem alloc                                     initWithTitle   Back                                      style UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered                                    target self                                    action  selector OnClick btnBack         self navigationItem leftBarButtonItem   btnBack       btnBack release     After you do that  you need to write to code for  btnBack  action in the same  m file like this   - IBAction OnClick btnBack  id sender           self navigationController popViewControllerAnimated YES          self navigationController pushViewController self navigationController parentViewController animated YES       That s all

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Here is the answer   In viewDidAppear animated  NOT in viewDidLoad  do the following  -  void viewDidAppear  BOOL animated         self navigationController navigationBar backItem setTitle   anything             then call the super       super viewDidAppear animated       That if you want to keep the shape of the back button

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This code works too  Put this on the root controller of the navigation controller   self navigationItem backBarButtonItem     UIBarButtonItem alloc  initWithTitle     style UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target nil action nil

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For those using storyboards just select the parent  not the one that is holding target view  view controller frame  be sure you click right on the Navigation bar  then open attributes inspector  where you ll find three form inputs  The third one  back button  is that we are looking for

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If you have more than one navigation that is  ParentViewController --  ChildViewController1 --  ChildViewController2  you can use below code to change title of back button on navigation bar   self navigationController  navigationBar topItem  backBarButtonItem    UIBarButtonItem init title   Back   style   plain  target  nil  action nil

User · Answer

It seems that the navigation controller looks for  previousViewController navigationItem title   If nothing there it looks for  previousViewController title

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I had a parent view controller with a really long title  This resulted in the back button text bleeding into the title of the child view controller   After trying a bunch of different solutions  this is what I ended up doing  expanding on the  john k doe approach    Using Xcode 7 2  Swift 2   In the Storyboard  add a Navigation Item to the Parent View Controller scene  not the child VC       On the Attributes Inspector of your new Navigation Item  type in a space character in the Back Button field   More on this later         In the Parent view controller  add the following code    snippet   override func prepareForSegue segue  UIStoryboardSegue  sender  AnyObject         switch segue destinationViewController       case is ChildViewController          navigationItem backBarButtonItem  title          default          navigationItem backBarButtonItem  title    Full Parent Title            Explanation   The back button sort of belongs to the parent view controller  The Navigation Item gives you a handle to the back button  so you can set the title in code or in the Storyboard   Note   If you leave the Navigation Item Back Button text as the default empty string  the back button title will become  Back    Other approaches work  why use this one    While it s possible to override the back button title on the child view controller  it was a challenge getting a handle to it until it had already flashed briefly on the screen   Some of the approaches construct a new back button and override the existing one  I m sure it works  and probably necessary in some use cases  But I prefer to leverage existing APIs when possible   Changing the title of the parent view controller is the quickest solution for some situations  However  this changes the parent title so you have to manage state  Things also get messy with a Tab Bar Controller because title changes cause side effects with the Tab Bar Item titles

User · Answer

If you want not only to change the text of the Back button to the same text and remain the original left-arrow shape  but also to do something when user clicks the Back button  I recommend you to have a look around my  CustomNavigationController

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self navigationItem backBarButtonItem      UIBarButtonItem alloc                                                 initWithTitle   Log out                                                 style UIBarButtonItemStyleDone                                                target nil                                                action nil  autorelease     you can put it whereever you like in the code in the parrent controller  which allowes you to have differenct backbuttons for different child views

User · Answer

According to document of UINavigationBar backItem       If the leftBarButtonItem property of the topmost navigation item is   nil  the navigation bar displays a back button whose title is derived   from the item in this property    But setting backItem backBarButtonItem does not work in first time viewWillAppear  Setting the topItem backBarButtonItem only works in first time viewWillAppear  Because navigationBar topItem is still pointing to the previousViewController navigationItem  In viewWillLayoutSubviews  the topItem and backItem are updated  So after 1st time viewWillAppear  we should set the backItem backBarButtonItem    ANSWER   Setting a backBarButtonItem to the navigationItem of the previous viewController no matter when and where in your current viewController  the top viewController   You can use this code in viewWillAppear or viewDidLoad  Check my blog post iOS Set Navigation Bar Back Button Title for detail analysis    NSArray  viewControllerArray    self navigationController viewControllers          get index of the previous ViewContoller     long previousIndex    viewControllerArray indexOfObject self  - 1      if  previousIndex  gt   0            UIViewController  previous    viewControllerArray objectAtIndex previousIndex           previous navigationItem backBarButtonItem     UIBarButtonItem alloc                                                           initWithTitle backButtonTitle                                                          style UIBarButtonItemStylePlain                                                          target self                                                          action nil

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Swift 4 iOS 11 2 Xcode 9 2    TableViewController1  ---segue--- gt    TableViewController2   You can change the text of the back button in either TableViewController1 or TableViewController2     Change the back button text inside TableViewController1   1  In viewWillAppear       override func viewWillAppear   animated  Bool        super viewWillAppear animated       let myBackButton   UIBarButtonItem       myBackButton title    Custom text      navigationItem backBarButtonItem   myBackButton     For some reason  viewDidLoad   is too early to add the back button to the NavigationItem   To connect the two TableViewControllers  in the storyboard control drag from the TableViewCell in TableViewController1 to the middle of TableViewController2 and in the popup menu select Selection Segue  gt  Show    2  In tableView   didSelectRowAt     override func tableView   tableView  UITableView  didSelectRowAt  IndexPath         let myButton   UIBarButtonItem       myButton title    Custom text      navigationItem backBarButtonItem   myButton      performSegue withIdentifier   ShowMyCustomBackButton   sender  nil      To connect the two TableViewControllers  in the storyboard control drag from the little yellow circle above TableViewController1 to the middle of TableViewController2 and from the popup menu select Manual Segue  gt  Show   Then select the segue connecting the two TableViewControllers  and in the Attributes Inspector next to  Identifier  enter  ShowMyCustomBackButton    3  In the storyboard    If you just need static custom text for the back button  select the NavigationItem for TableViewController1  it has a  lt  for an icon in the storyboard   s table of contents   then open the Attributes Inspector and in the    Back Button    field enter your custom text  be sure to tab out of that field for the change to take effect      Change the back button text inside TableViewController2   1  In viewWillAppear     class MySecondTableViewController  UITableViewController        override func viewWillAppear   animated  Bool            super viewWillAppear animated           let myBackButton   UIBarButtonItem              title    lt Custom text               style   plain              target  self              action   selector goBack     selector   needs to be paired with an  objc label on the method                    navigationItem leftBarButtonItem   myBackButton             objc func goBack             navigationController  popViewController animated  true          To connect the two TableViewControllers  in the storyboard control drag from the TableViewCell in TableViewController1 to the middle of TableViewController2 and in the popup menu select Selection Segue  gt  Show

User · Answer

Here s another way to do it   In your parent view controller  implement the following method   -  void  setBackBarButtonItemTitle  NSString   newTitle     self navigationItem backBarButtonItem title   newTitle      In your child view controller  when you want to change the title  this will work   NSArray  viewControllerArray    self navigationController viewControllers   int parentViewControllerIndex    viewControllerArray count  - 2    viewControllerArray objectAtIndex parentViewControllerIndex  setBackBarButtonItemTitle   New Title      I was never able to get the parentViewController property to work     ParentViewController    self navigationController parentViewController  setBackBarButtonItemTitle   New Title      I don t know if that s a bug or I m not using it properly  But grabbing the second-to-last view controller in the viewControllers array points to the parent view controller  and I can call parent methods correctly with that reference

User · Answer

in Xcode 4 5 using storyboard  by far the easiest solution i ve found when the value of the Back button doesn t have to change dynamically is to use the  Back Button  field associated with the Navigation Item of the View Controller to which you want the  Back  button to say something else   e g  in the screenshot below  i want the Back button for the view controller s  that i push to have  Back  as the title of the Back button     of course  this won t work if you need the back button to say something slightly different each time     there are all of the other solutions here for that

[ios] How do I change the title of the "back" button on a Navigation Bar

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