MessageColors lets you add color gradients to the Messages app

If you have an iPhone, then chances are you spend a lot of time in the Messages app text messaging other people. With that in mind, wouldn’t it be great if you could colorize the Messages app to match your individual personality?

If you like what you’re hearing so far, then you’ll probably enjoy a new free jailbreak tweak called MessageColors by iOS developer RestiveConch. This tweak lets you apply custom color gradients to your Messages app, making it possible to achieve the result you see in the screenshot example above.

The concept behind MessageColors was originally requested on /r/jailbreak within the last couple of weeks, and with that in mind, it’s exciting to see that the tweak has materialized in such a short period of time.

Once installed, MessageColors adds a preference pane to the Settings app where you can configure the tweak to your liking:

Here, you can:

  • Enable or disable the tweak on demand
  • Toggle Dark Mode on or off
  • Configure the iMessage bubble primary color
  • Configure the iMessage bubble secondary color
  • Configure the SMS bubble primary color
  • Configure the SMS bubble secondary color

The developer includes a blue Apply button at the bottom of the preference pane that you should use whenever making changes to the settings to ensure they’re saved.

One thing we liked was that the color options are seemingly limitless as the developer provides a full-fledged color picker rather than a pre-defined list of general colors. We also enjoy that you can make the Messages app’s background dark and then colorize the message bubbles on top of that for a prettier look and feel.

If you’re interested in trying MessageColors out for yourself, then you can download it for free from RestiveConch’s beta repository in Cydia. The tweak works with all jailbroken iOS 11 and 12 devices and is just spunky enough to help your handset stand out from the rest of the crowd.

Have you tried MesssageColors yet? If so, share your colorization configurations in the comments section below!