Can I change white text in Contacts notes on iOS 26?

Update: this issue has been fixed in iOS 26.1 Go to the Accessibility Settings/Per-App Settings add the Contacts app and set Reduce Transparency to On. Text in the app will become black again. Turning on Reduce Transparency generally will also work.

Turn off Reduce Transparency. Turning on Reduce Transparency makes it far worse. Also turn OFF Increase Contrast. To clearly see the text in the notes section of the Contact card, select Edit to edit the card and everything will look as it did before. This wasn't well tested before they released it or someone would have fixed it or given better options.

mowie wrote:

Please fix the White text in notes. I use this every day and I can’t read it unless I’m indoors the lighting is not very bright.

No one who participates in this forum or reads these posts can do that.

You can let Apple know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Per 9/24/25: The white font in the Notes field in Contacts set against the current default light lavender background in the first release of iOS 26 does make legibility difficult and extremely frustrating. This appears to be a widespread current complaint among users after upgrading to iOS 26.

I have found that taking the following steps will increase the contrast for all Contacts by darkening the background color from the currently default lavender to a darker purple. The font will uniformly turn white across all fields in Contacts, but the legibility increases noticeably. I'd consider this a workaround until Apple fixes the contrast problem (which never should have been allowed to slip through quality control in the first place):

1. Settings > Accessibility > Per-App Settings
2. Add App: Contacts
3. Reduce Transparency: Select"ON," then select "OFF"; (Leave "OFF")

OK to back out to Settings.

Your Contacts background color should have turned a darker purple and all fields should be populated with a white font. Visibility should be noticeably better than the default pending a fix by Apple.

Don’t tell people reduce or increased transparency/contrast it absolutely doesn’t solve the problem and my settings were already there.

Here is the solution via one of the comments below, the only thing that worked for me!

alexpm77

User level:

Level 1

44 points

Sep 25, 2025 12:14 AM in response to timfrombaldivis

Per 9/24/25: The white font in the Notes field in Contacts set against the current default light lavender background in the first release of iOS 26 does make legibility difficult and extremely frustrating. This appears to be a widespread current complaint among users after upgrading to iOS 26.

I have found that taking the following steps will increase the contrast for all Contacts by darkening the background color from the currently default lavender to a darker purple. The font will uniformly turn white across all fields in Contacts, but the legibility increases noticeably. I'd consider this a workaround until Apple fixes the contrast problem (which never should have been allowed to slip through quality control in the first place):

1. Settings > Accessibility > Per-App Settings
2. Add App: Contacts
3. Reduce Transparency: Select"ON," then select "OFF"; (Leave "OFF")

OK to back out to Settings.

Your Contacts background color should have turned a darker purple and all fields should be populated with a white font. Visibility should be noticeably better than the default pending a fix by Apple.

While this isn't a fix, it will help all of us until Apples fixes this serious issue. Open your contact. Click on Edit. You will see the familiar white with black lettering. Be careful not to actually edit your contact card. Once you get the info you want, go back to the live card and either call, text, or email as necessary.

apple just told me “ Turn OFF Increase Contrast. To clearly see the text in the notes section of the Contact card, select Edit to edit the card and everything will look as it did before.”

I did thus and it definitely helped!

Still don’t like blue background

The problem of white text on a lavender background is ridiculous. I followed some suggestions posted here. I added Contacts to the per app settings, turned off reduce transparency and contrast, then turned on smart invert. That resulted in black text in notes. It’s not the best solution, however, because the list of Contacts is now haswhite text on black background.

Williasp wrote:

The problem of white text on a lavender background is ridiculous. I followed some suggestions posted here. I added Contacts to the per app settings, turned off reduce transparency and contrast, then turned on smart invert. That resulted in black text in notes. It’s not the best solution, however, because the list of Contacts is now haswhite text on black background.

Have you told Apple how you feel?

Product Feedback - Apple

IOS 26.1 does indeed turn the notes in contacts to readable black, thanks. Shame about the lavender background - it’s still there.

However, the update has caused a new problem for my eyesight. The battery widget is now white on pale grey. Why? I cannot see how to change it back to black. Oh Apple, how disappointing.

The method of turning Reduce Transparency on and off improved my Contacts contrast for some contacts, but the background color seems to be keyed to the contact image and therefore is different for different contacts. This method helps more for contacts with darker backgrounds, but not for all contacts.

This has finally been fixed in IOS 26.1 update!

Thank god they fixed that! Just downloaded 26.1 and it is fixed.

Contacts are almost unusable at present with white text on a light background. Here's what I found:

>Selecting Edit on a record changes the text to black during the edit - but the text changes back to black when the record is saved.

>Toggling on "Reduce Transparency" in both IOS 26 and iPadOS 26 changes the text back to black on all fields EXCEPT the Notes field (which stay white). Interestingly, when making the same change on MacOS, all fields, including Notes, change to black text. Which adds further support to the conclusion that this is a bug in IOS and iPadOS.

my solution for now until I figure out how to change the color, is to tap the edit button in the upper right corner when I’m on my notes and then it changes the background to black-and-white then when you’re done I just click OK or hit the checkmark or whatever it is, and it goes back to that ghastly color.