Add "padding" to a UITextView

Using Objective-C I have done it just with

[self.textView setTextContainerInset:UIEdgeInsetsMake(0, 12, 0, 12)];

For Swift you can use:

textview.contentInset = UIEdgeInsets(top: 0, left: 12, bottom: 0, right: 12)

You can also create a Swift Extension (Suggested by chowdhury-md-rajib-sarwar) here:

extension UITextView {
func leftSpace() {
    self.textContainerInset = UIEdgeInsets(top: 4, left: 6, bottom: 4, right: 4)
}

}

And then use

let textView = UITextView()
textView.leftSpace() 

Hope this helps, Mário

This answer is totally wrong. Correct answer is simply:

uitextview.textContainerInset =
       UIEdgeInsetsMake(8,5,8,5); // top, left, bottom, right

(Those values generally match how a UITextField on the same screen looks.)

---

Use this one:

self.textView.contentInset = UIEdgeInsetsMake(5, 5, 5, 5); 

EDIT 1/16/2015: This was written in 2012 and is no longer accurate. Use -textContainerInset as mentioned above.

Original post:

Using contentInset won't actually work. You have two reasonable choices: subclass UITextField and override the textRectForBounds: and editingRectForBounds: methods or create your text field transparently over a UIView and style the UIView.

Example of subclassing the UITextField:

- (CGRect)textRectForBounds:(CGRect)bounds {
     return CGRectInset(bounds, 5, 5);
}

- (CGRect)editingRectForBounds:(CGRect)bounds {
     return CGRectInset(bounds, 5, 5);
}

Example of wrapping it in a UIView:

UIView *wrapView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(10, 10, 200, 30)];
[wrapView addSubview:textView];
wrapView.layer.borderColor = [UIColor darkGrayColor].CGColor;
wrapView.layer.borderWidth = 2.0;
wrapView.layer.cornerRadius = 5.0;

This is working in Swift 5:

textView.textContainerInset = UIEdgeInsets(top: 20, left: 20, bottom: 20, right: 20)