Change color of Navigation Drawer Icon in Android Studio default template

Issue

The new default Navigation Drawer Activity template in Android Studio

defines its titles and icons in a menu file activity_main_drawer like this:

<group android:checkableBehavior="single">
    <item
        android:id="@+id/nav_camara"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_action_emo_cool"
        android:title="Import" />
    <item
        android:id="@+id/nav_gallery"
        android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_gallery"
        android:title="Gallery" />
    <item
        android:id="@+id/nav_slideshow"
        android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_slideshow"
        android:title="Slideshow" />
        ...

The first item in my example uses a red icon:

but when I run the app, the color of the icon remains black.I have tested this for blue, green, yellow and purple icons, but the result is the same.

I read somewhere that the toolbar should use ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar and my app already uses this in the styles.xml file:

<resources>

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.NoActionBar">
    <item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
    <item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.AppBarOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar" />
<style name="AppTheme.PopupOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light" />

Initially I thought this had something to do with Android Studio's cache feature so I invalidated cache and restarted Android Studio with no luck.

Solution

Based on @MD's comment, all I needed to do was add:

app:itemIconTint="@color/my_desired_colour"

to NavigationView (it is located in activity_main.xml layout file) The default tint is black but you can use an even darker shade of black by using #000000

 <android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
    android:id="@+id/nav_view"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_gravity="start"
    android:fitsSystemWindows="true"
    app:headerLayout="@layout/nav_header_main"
    app:itemIconTint="#000000"
    app:menu="@menu/activity_main_drawer" />

Answered By - Ojonugwa Jude Ochalifu