只要把下面的代码写进Appdelegate的didFinishLaunchingWithOptions方法，如果你想在Swift 4.2编写的整个应用程序中进行更改，使用这个方法

UILabel.appearance(whenContainedInInstancesOf: [UITextField.self]).textColor = UIColor.white

Swift 3(可能是2)，你可以覆盖didSet占位符在UITextField子类上应用属性，这样:

override var placeholder: String? {

    didSet {
        guard let tmpText = placeholder else {
            self.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: "")
            return
        }

        let textRange = NSMakeRange(0, tmpText.characters.count)
        let attributedText = NSMutableAttributedString(string: tmpText)
        attributedText.addAttribute(NSForegroundColorAttributeName , value:UIColor(white:147.0/255.0, alpha:1.0), range: textRange)

        self.attributedPlaceholder = attributedText
    }
}

在Swift中这样使用，

 let placeHolderText = textField.placeholder ?? ""
 let str = NSAttributedString(string:placeHolderText!, attributes: [NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor :UIColor.lightGray])
 textField.attributedPlaceholder = str

在Objective C中

NSString *placeHolder = [textField.placeholder length]>0 ? textField.placeholder: @"";
NSAttributedString *str = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:placeHolder attributes:@{ NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor lightGrayColor] }];
textField.attributedPlaceholder = str;

在你的应用程序中为所有UITextField设置占位符颜色，你可以这样做:

UILabel.appearanceWhenContainedInInstancesOfClasses([UITextField.self]).textColor = UIColor.redColor()

这将为整个应用程序中的所有TextField占位符设置所需的颜色。但它仅从iOS 9开始可用。

在swift中iOS 9之前没有appearenceWhenContainedIn....()方法，但您可以使用这里提供的解决方案之一

Swift 4

txtField1.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: "-", attributes: [NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor: UIColor.white])

对于目标C:

UIColor *color = [UIColor colorWithRed:0.44 green:0.44 blue:0.44 alpha:1.0];
 emailTextField.attributedPlaceholder = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:@"Friend's Email" attributes:@{NSForegroundColorAttributeName: color}];

迅速:

emailTextField.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: "Friend's Email",
                             attributes: [NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: UIColor.white])