The tab bar is always forced to light mode on iOS 26 when "Reduce Transparency" is on

[olliFCA]

Before submitting a new issue

• I tested using the latest version of the library, as the bug might be already fixed.
• I tested using a supported version of react native.
• I checked for possible duplicate issues, with possible answers.

Bug summary

On iOS 26 with the new Liquid Glass style tab bar, the background and icon appearance is always in light mode despite system setting, when the accessibility option "Reduce Transparency" is enabled in the iOS settings. When the accessibility setting is not enabled, the tab bar responds to system appearance and content in the background normally. Calling Appearance.setColorScheme('dark') and/or using DarkTheme for the Native stack navigator has no effect on this issue. This does not seem to be a bug in iOS 26 itself, nor is the tab bar supposed to be in light mode when the accessibility setting is enabled, as in Apple's own native apps the tab bar behaves normally (as shown in the example screenshot of Shortcuts below).
This issue can be replicated with the example app in this repo.

Screenshots
Reduce Transparency enabled and system set to dark theme, issue with the tab bar occurs.

Reduce Transparency disabled, issue does not occur.

Apple's Shortcuts app for comparison. No issue with Reduce Transparency setting.

The screenshots are from a simulator but the issue occurs on actual devices too.

Library version

0.11.2

Environment info

System:
  OS: macOS 15.6.1
  CPU: (8) arm64 Apple M1 Pro
  Memory: 626.77 MB / 32.00 GB
  Shell:
    version: "5.9"
    path: /bin/zsh
Binaries:
  Node:
    version: 20.19.5
    path: /opt/homebrew/opt/node@20/bin/node
  Yarn:
    version: 4.6.0
    path: /opt/homebrew/opt/node@18/bin/yarn
  npm:
    version: 10.8.2
    path: /opt/homebrew/opt/node@20/bin/npm
  Watchman:
    version: 2025.09.15.00
    path: /opt/homebrew/bin/watchman
Managers:
  CocoaPods:
    version: 1.16.2
    path: /opt/homebrew/bin/pod
SDKs:
  iOS SDK:
    Platforms:
      - DriverKit 25.0
      - iOS 26.0
      - macOS 26.0
      - tvOS 26.0
      - visionOS 26.0
      - watchOS 26.0
  Android SDK: Not Found
IDEs:
  Android Studio: 2025.1 AI-251.26094.121.2512.13991807
  Xcode:
    version: 26.0/17A324
    path: /usr/bin/xcodebuild
Languages:
  Java:
    version: 17.0.16
    path: /usr/bin/javac
  Ruby:
    version: 3.4.6
    path: /opt/homebrew/opt/ruby/bin/ruby
npmPackages:
  "@react-native-community/cli": Not Found
  react: Not Found
  react-native: Not Found
  react-native-macos: Not Found
npmGlobalPackages:
  "*react-native*": Not Found
Android:
  hermesEnabled: Not found
  newArchEnabled: Not found
iOS:
  hermesEnabled: Not found
  newArchEnabled: Not found

Steps to reproduce

1. Install the example app from this repo.
2. (Optionally) call Appearance.setColorScheme('dark') in the App() function and set NavigationContainer theme prop to DarkTheme (imported from '@react-navigation/native').
3. In iOS Settings app, set system theme to dark and in Accessibility -> Display & Text size, enable Reduce Transparency.
4. In the example app, navigate to an example with a native tab bar.

Reproducible sample code

./apps/example/ from this repository.

[lostb1t]

Can confirm. Encountering the same

[okwasniewski]

Hey, the iOS 26 tab bar automatically changes color based on the background.

When checking with black background color behind the tab view + reduce transparency it works as expected.

Can you confirm this is the case? This library is not doing anything special with forcing light mode related to reduced transparency.

[olliFCA]

Hey, the iOS 26 tab bar automatically changes color based on the background.

When checking with black background color behind the tab view + reduce transparency it works as expected.

Can you confirm this is the case? This library is not doing anything special with forcing light mode related to reduced transparency.

This does not seem to be the case for us in our own app and neither in the example app of this repo. Yes, the bar should change background color based on the content behind it, but the issue is that it does not, even with pure black background behind it. You can see this also in the first screenshot of the issue, where the tab bar is white while it has the black bar behind it.

Edit: In these cases all the other native iOS Liquid Glass and other system elements, e.g. header buttons and search bars do get the correct dark appearance. Only the tab bar from this repo always displays in light mode when Reduce Transparency is on.

[olliFCA]

Something I forgot from the initial issue description:
The tab bar can eventually adopt the correct dark appearance via actions like resizing the app window on iPad, which somehow forces the tab bar to refresh. Still, to clarify, in our case the content and system appearance are not light during the launch of the app—if they were, it could suggest that the bar adopts the appearance based on the initial content but does not refresh. However, in our case both the content and the system appearance are dark in the first place, so even the initial tab bar appearance is wrong.

[joshkeldam]

CleanShot.2025-10-15.at.22.33.49.mp4

Experiencing a similar issue with the colour of the tab bar on dark mode. Didn't want to open a new issue as it's likely somewhat a related problem.

[susanapons]

Any update here? Facing the same issue. Is allways going to light mode on transparency on

[Vishal-D4]

I am also having the same issue, Has anyone got any fix?

Screen.Recording.2025-11-25.at.3.24.45.PM.mov

[okwasniewski]

Hey does it happen on iOS 26.1 or only on 26.0?

[Vishal-D4]

happening in 26.1 too

[olliFCA]

Hey does it happen on iOS 26.1 or only on 26.0?

@okwasniewski
It happened with iOS 26.1 occasionally, but not as reliably as it did with iOS 26.0. As far as I'm aware, Apple fixed similar issues in native apps in 26.1 update.
However, in the 26.2 beta, I am unable to reproduce the issue in our app that uses this library, so the issue might already be fixed via the OS update.

[bastiendmt]

Using iOS 26.2 public version, I confirm that the "flashing" is still happening

[sept-jm]

In my case it seems like maybe the OS color scheme is fighting the app color scheme. I was able to fix in my Expo project by setting "userInterfaceStyle": "automatic" (see here) in my app.json. It seems to always default to the OS color scheme first before updating from whatever is behind it (rather inconsistently).