Safari 26 uses <meta name="theme-color"> only for web apps

[andesco]

Summary

• lists Safari 26 (and mirrored iOS and WebView) as removing support for html.elements.meta.name.theme-color

Test Results and Supporting Details

• https://github.com/andesco/Safari-color-tinting
• https://safari-color-tinting.pages.dev

[github-actions]

Tip: Review these changes grouped by change (recommended for most PRs), or grouped by feature (for large PRs).

[caugner]

I could not find evidence for this removal. In particular, WebKit still has code handling theme-color changes: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/ac871ed0a668bd6fdd43e8590039b83fb3fd5d3e/Source/WebCore/html/HTMLMetaElement.cpp#L114

@andesco Can you please provide details on how you came to the conclusion that Safari 26 removed support for this feature? Can you confirm that you checked both in desktop and mobile versions, and if you used one of the linked examples, can you confirm that you verified a prior Safari version like 18.6?

[andesco]

Can you please provide details on how you came to the conclusion that Safari 26 removed support for this feature?

I built safari-color-tinting to demonstrate and document this change.

Can you confirm that you checked both in desktop and mobile versions, and if you used one of the linked examples, can you confirm that you verified a prior Safari version like 18.6?

Yes. I have used safari-color-tinting to show that Safari 26 (macOS and iOS) drops support for theme-color and that Safari 18.x (macOS and iOS) only uses theme-color.

@caugner, thank you for taking a second look.

[caugner]

@andesco Could you add screenshots to the PR description?

I don't see any differences between Safari 26, 18.4, and 17.3, and I don't find the mentioned setting neither in Safari 17.3 nor Safari 18.4:

[caugner]

@andesco When you have a moment, please add some screenshots and instructions on how to reproduce your findings. See comments above.

[andesco]

screenshots of Safari 15 vs. Safari 26 on macOS:

• andesco/safari-color-tinting@f279046
• https://github.com/andesco/safari-color-tinting/tree/main/images

The settings referenced now mention Safari 26:

• https://github.com/andesco/safari-color-tinting#safari-settings
• http://safari-color-tinting.pages.dev

[caugner]

We discussed this in this week's BCD meeting:

This is still supported for installed web apps, and the spec does not require the color to be used (apparently there were some limitations before, to avoid contrast issues).

Therefore we should just add a note instead of setting partial_implementation or version_removed:

Suggested change

	"version_added": "15",
	"version_removed": "26"
	"version_added": "15",
	"notes": "From Safari 26, the theme color is only used for installed web apps."

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