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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I left Apple Feedback about this just now, but I also called Apple Support yesterday since I have a new iPhone 17. First level support did a screen share on my phone and were surprised how unreadable the notes are and passed me onto second level support who took screenshots of my phone. They were surprised Dark Mode was not working in the Contacts app since I had it turned on. They said other people are calling about the issue and they are taking it seriously. The second-level support rep kindly escalated the issue and assured me it would be seen by those responsible for the interface decisions at Apple. Leaving Apple Feedback is important and worth doing, but letting Apple Support know directly, allowing them to screen-share, is also an effective way of helping Apple fix bugs. The Apple Feedback system does not allow me to upload screenshots of issues - at least not that I could see.

X-RHEA wrote:

Since upgrading to iOS 26 all my notes in the Contacts app are white text on a pale background and very difficult to read; impossible to read outdoors. Bold text in settings doesn't help. Dark mode doesn't help. Apple please fix and allow black text in the notes section of Contacts!! Anyone else have this issue?

Apple doesn't read here for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

One thing I would mention is that the Notes section in Contacts has had a long history of being very flakey. Maybe it's under control now; maybe it's not. But I still wouldn't trust it for anything important.

I totally agree that the contact notes now are EXTREMELY difficult to read! I have almost 9,000 contacts and rely on them heavily for work. The only way I have been make the background of the notes section black is by selecting "Edit". If I had known that iOS 26 had this effect on contact notes I likely would not have upgraded.

Yes, I am having this issue with contact app background and text color in notes. It’s very frustrating and completely unusable! I have to go to my contact, and then go into “Edit” mode just so I can see the information.

[Edited by Moderator]

Go to Accessibility. Choose Display and Test. Toggle Reduce Transparency

simty wrote:

Go to Accessibility. Choose Display and Test. Toggle Reduce Transparency

Ewww. No, it looks terrible. I really like Liquid Glass.

Same problem! White text in the notes of contacts is very difficult to see. Only way to see it to click "edit" and then it shows but it's a problem in need of a solution!

Very simple simple solution to the white lettering on purple background in contacts. When you open a contact hit the edit button. Everything turns to black lettering on white background