Tint menu icons in overflow menu and submenus

Unfortunately, there is no way to set the menu item icon color's tint using a theme or style. You need a method to check if the MenuItem is visible on the ActionBar or in the overflow menu. Both the native and support MenuItemImpl class have a method for this but they are either restricted to the library or hidden. This requires reflection. You can use the following method to check if the menu item is visible or not, and then set the color filter:

java

public static boolean isActionButton(@NonNull MenuItem item) {
  if (item instanceof MenuItemImpl) {
    return ((MenuItemImpl) item).isActionButton();
  } else {
    // Not using the support library. This is a native MenuItem. Reflection is needed.
    try {
      Method m = item.getClass().getDeclaredMethod("isActionButton");
      if (!m.isAccessible()) m.setAccessible(true);
      return (boolean) m.invoke(item);
    } catch (Exception e) {
      return false;
    }
  }
}

You also need to wait until the menu is inflated before tinting the items. To accomplish this you can get a reference to the ActionBar and tint the MenuItem after the ActionBar has been drawn.

Example:

java

@Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
  getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);

  int id = getResources().getIdentifier("action_bar", "id", "android");
  ViewGroup actionBar;
  if (id != 0) {
    actionBar = (ViewGroup) findViewById(id);
  } else {
    // You must be using a custom Toolbar. Use the toolbar view instead.
    // actionBar = yourToolbar
  }

  actionBar.post(new Runnable() {
    @Override public void run() {
      // Add code to tint menu items here 
    }
  });

  return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

Here is a class I wrote to help with tinting menu item icons: https://gist.github.com/jaredrummler/7816b13fcd5fe1ac61cb0173a1878d4f