iOS/Swift - Hide/Show UITabBarController when scrolling down/up

This answer is a slight modification to Ariel answer which adds animation while user scrolls.

extension ViewController:UIScrollViewDelegate{
    func scrollViewDidScroll(_ scrollView: UIScrollView) {
        if scrollView.panGestureRecognizer.translation(in: scrollView).y < 0{
            //scrolling down
            changeTabBar(hidden: true, animated: true)
        }
        else{
            //scrolling up
            changeTabBar(hidden: false, animated: true)
        }
    }

    func changeTabBar(hidden:Bool, animated: Bool){
        let tabBar = self.tabBarController?.tabBar
        let offset = (hidden ? UIScreen.main.bounds.size.height : UIScreen.main.bounds.size.height - (tabBar?.frame.size.height)! )
        if offset == tabBar?.frame.origin.y {return}
        print("changing origin y position")
        let duration:TimeInterval = (animated ? 0.5 : 0.0)
        UIView.animate(withDuration: duration,
                       animations: {tabBar!.frame.origin.y = offset},
                       completion:nil)
    }
}

You can control UITabBar precisly by setting up your class as delegate for scrollView and implementing scrolling in scrollViewDidScroll: method.

Here is an example how I do it my application. You can probably easily modify that for your needs. Some helper function to get UITabBar included.

#define LIMIT(__VALUE__, __MIN__, __MAX__) MAX(__MIN__, MIN(__MAX__, __VALUE__))

- (void)scrollViewDidScroll:(UIScrollView *)scrollView
{
    CGFloat scrollOffset = scrollView.contentOffset.y;
    CGFloat scrollDiff = scrollOffset - self.previousScrollViewYOffset;
    CGFloat scrollHeight = scrollView.frame.size.height;
    CGFloat scrollContentSizeHeight = scrollView.contentSize.height + scrollView.contentInset.bottom;
    CGFloat scrollOffsetGlobal = scrollOffset + scrollView.contentInset.top;
    [self updateUITabBarY:[self UITabBarView].frame.origin.y + scrollDiff];
    self.previousScrollViewYOffset = scrollOffset;
}

- (UITabBar*) UITabBarView
{
    for(UIView *view in self.tabBarController.view.subviews)
    {
        if([view isKindOfClass:[UITabBar class]])
        {
            return (UITabBar*) view;
        }
    }

    return nil;
}

- (void) updateUITabBarY:(CGFloat) y
{
    UITabBar* tabBar = [self UITabBarView];
    if(tabBar)
    {
        CGRect frame = tabBar.frame;
        frame.origin.y  = LIMIT(y, [self UITabBarMiny], [self UITabBarMaxY]);
        tabBar.frame = frame;
    }
}

- (CGFloat) UITabBarMiny
{
    return [UIScreen mainScreen].bounds.size.height - [self UITabBarView].frame.size.height - [[UIApplication sharedApplication] statusBarFrame].size.height + 20.0f;
}

- (CGFloat) UITabBarMaxY
{
    return [UIScreen mainScreen].bounds.size.height;
}

Building on Ariel's answer, I have updated the code for Swift3. This worked great on my collection views.

override func scrollViewDidEndDragging(_ scrollView: UIScrollView, willDecelerate decelerate: Bool) {
        if scrollView.panGestureRecognizer.translation(in: scrollView).y < 0 {
            changeTabBar(hidden: true, animated: true)
        }else{
            changeTabBar(hidden: false, animated: true)
        }

    }

func changeTabBar(hidden:Bool, animated: Bool){
        let tabBar = self.tabBarController?.tabBar
        if tabBar!.isHidden == hidden{ return }
        let frame = tabBar?.frame
        let offset = (hidden ? (frame?.size.height)! : -(frame?.size.height)!)
        let duration:TimeInterval = (animated ? 0.5 : 0.0)
        tabBar?.isHidden = false
        if frame != nil
        {
            UIView.animate(withDuration: duration,
                                       animations: {tabBar!.frame = frame!.offsetBy(dx: 0, dy: offset)},
                                       completion: {
                                        print($0)
                                        if $0 {tabBar?.isHidden = hidden}
            })
        }
    }

This is code that i'm actually using in a production app.

It's in Swift and it also updates UITabBar.hidden var.

func scrollViewWillBeginDragging(scrollView: UIScrollView) {
    if scrollView.panGestureRecognizer.translation(in: scrollView).y < 0{
        changeTabBar(hidden: true, animated: true)
    }
    else{
        changeTabBar(hidden: false, animated: true)
    }
}

You can also use the other callback method:

func scrollViewDidScroll(scrollView: UIScrollView) {
    ...
}

but if you choose so, then you must handle multiple calls to the helper method that actually hides the tabBar.

And then you need to add this method that animates the hide/show of the tabBar.

func changeTabBar(hidden:Bool, animated: Bool){
    var tabBar = self.tabBarController?.tabBar
    if tabBar!.hidden == hidden{ return }
    let frame = tabBar?.frame
    let offset = (hidden ? (frame?.size.height)! : -(frame?.size.height)!)
    let duration:NSTimeInterval = (animated ? 0.5 : 0.0)
    tabBar?.hidden = false
    if frame != nil
    {
        UIView.animateWithDuration(duration,
            animations: {tabBar!.frame = CGRectOffset(frame!, 0, offset)},
            completion: {
                println($0)
                if $0 {tabBar?.hidden = hidden}
        })
    }
}

Update Swift 4

func changeTabBar(hidden:Bool, animated: Bool){
    guard let tabBar = self.tabBarController?.tabBar else { return; }
    if tabBar.isHidden == hidden{ return }
    let frame = tabBar.frame
    let offset = hidden ? frame.size.height : -frame.size.height
    let duration:TimeInterval = (animated ? 0.5 : 0.0)
    tabBar.isHidden = false

    UIView.animate(withDuration: duration, animations: {
        tabBar.frame = frame.offsetBy(dx: 0, dy: offset)
    }, completion: { (true) in
        tabBar.isHidden = hidden
    })
}