迅速:

以编程方式或通过Interface Builder添加你的文本视图，如果是最后一个，创建outlet:

@IBOutlet weak var yourTextView: UITextView!

请添加委托(UITextViewDelegate):

class ViewController: UIViewController, UITextViewDelegate {

在viewDidLoad方法中，添加如下内容:

override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.

    yourTextView.delegate = self
    yourTextView.text = "Placeholder text goes right here..."
    yourTextView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray

现在让我来介绍一下神奇的部分，添加这个函数:

func textViewDidBeginEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {

    if yourTextView.textColor == UIColor.lightGray {
        yourTextView.text = ""
        yourTextView.textColor = UIColor.black
    }
}

请注意，这将在编辑开始时执行，在那里我们将检查条件来告知状态，使用color属性。 设置文本为nil我不建议。在此之后，我们将文本颜色设置为所需的颜色，在本例中为黑色。

现在也添加这个函数:

func textViewDidEndEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {

    if yourTextView.text == "" {

        yourTextView.text = "Placeholder text ..."
        yourTextView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray
    }
}

让我坚持一下，不要与零进行比较，我已经试过了，它不会起作用。然后我们将值设置回占位符样式，并将颜色设置回占位符颜色，因为这是在textViewDidBeginEditing中检查的条件。

基于这里已经给出的一些很好的建议，我能够将以下轻量级的、与接口生成器兼容的UITextView子类组合在一起，它是:

包括可配置的占位符文本，样式就像UITextField一样。 不需要任何额外的子视图或约束。 不需要来自ViewController的任何委托或其他行为。 不需要任何通知。 保持占位符文本与查看字段文本属性的任何外部类完全分离。

任何改进建议都是受欢迎的，特别是如果有任何方法通过编程来获取iOS的占位符颜色，而不是硬编码它。

斯威夫特v5:

import UIKit
@IBDesignable class TextViewWithPlaceholder: UITextView {
    
    override var text: String! { // Ensures that the placeholder text is never returned as the field's text
        get {
            if showingPlaceholder {
                return "" // When showing the placeholder, there's no real text to return
            } else { return super.text }
        }
        set { super.text = newValue }
    }
    @IBInspectable var placeholderText: String = ""
    @IBInspectable var placeholderTextColor: UIColor = UIColor(red: 0.78, green: 0.78, blue: 0.80, alpha: 1.0) // Standard iOS placeholder color (#C7C7CD). See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31057746/whats-the-default-color-for-placeholder-text-in-uitextfield
    private var showingPlaceholder: Bool = true // Keeps track of whether the field is currently showing a placeholder
    
    override func didMoveToWindow() {
        super.didMoveToWindow()
        if text.isEmpty {
            showPlaceholderText() // Load up the placeholder text when first appearing, but not if coming back to a view where text was already entered
        }
    }
    
    override func becomeFirstResponder() -> Bool {
        // If the current text is the placeholder, remove it
        if showingPlaceholder {
            text = nil
            textColor = nil // Put the text back to the default, unmodified color
            showingPlaceholder = false
        }
        return super.becomeFirstResponder()
    }
    
    override func resignFirstResponder() -> Bool {
        // If there's no text, put the placeholder back
        if text.isEmpty {
            showPlaceholderText()
        }
        return super.resignFirstResponder()
    }
    
    private func showPlaceholderText() {
        showingPlaceholder = true
        textColor = placeholderTextColor
        text = placeholderText
    }
}

Swift 4更新

UITextView本身没有占位符属性，所以你必须用UITextViewDelegate方法来创建和操作一个。我建议使用下面的解决方案#1或#2，这取决于所需的行为。

注意:对于任何一种解决方案，都需要将UITextViewDelegate添加到类中，并设置textView.delegate = self来使用文本视图的委托方法。

解决方案#1 -如果你想让占位符在用户选择文本视图时立即消失:

首先将UITextView设置为包含占位符文本，并将其设置为浅灰色，以模拟UITextField的占位符文本的外观。要么在viewDidLoad中这样做，要么在文本视图创建时这样做。

textView.text = "Placeholder"
textView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray

然后，当用户开始编辑文本视图时，如果文本视图包含一个占位符(即，如果其文本颜色是浅灰色)，则清除占位符文本，并将文本颜色设置为黑色，以便容纳用户的输入。

func textViewDidBeginEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {
    if textView.textColor == UIColor.lightGray {
        textView.text = nil
        textView.textColor = UIColor.black
    }
}

然后，当用户完成编辑文本视图并将其作为第一响应器时，如果文本视图为空，则通过重新添加占位符文本并将其颜色设置为浅灰色来重置其占位符。

func textViewDidEndEditing(_ textView: UITextView) {
    if textView.text.isEmpty {
        textView.text = "Placeholder"
        textView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray
    }
}

解决方案#2 -如果你想要占位符显示文本视图是空的，即使文本视图被选中:

首先在viewDidLoad中设置占位符:

textView.text = "Placeholder"
textView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray

textView.becomeFirstResponder()

textView.selectedTextRange = textView.textRange(from: textView.beginningOfDocument, to: textView.beginningOfDocument)

(注意:由于OP希望在视图加载时立即选择文本视图，所以我将文本视图选择合并到上面的代码中。如果这不是你想要的行为，你不希望在视图加载时选择文本视图，从上面的代码块中删除最后两行。)

然后使用shouldChangeTextInRange UITextViewDelegate方法，如下所示:

func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldChangeTextIn range: NSRange, replacementText text: String) -> Bool {

    // Combine the textView text and the replacement text to
    // create the updated text string
    let currentText:String = textView.text
    let updatedText = (currentText as NSString).replacingCharacters(in: range, with: text)

    // If updated text view will be empty, add the placeholder
    // and set the cursor to the beginning of the text view
    if updatedText.isEmpty {

        textView.text = "Placeholder"
        textView.textColor = UIColor.lightGray

        textView.selectedTextRange = textView.textRange(from: textView.beginningOfDocument, to: textView.beginningOfDocument)
    }

    // Else if the text view's placeholder is showing and the
    // length of the replacement string is greater than 0, set 
    // the text color to black then set its text to the
    // replacement string
     else if textView.textColor == UIColor.lightGray && !text.isEmpty {
        textView.textColor = UIColor.black
        textView.text = text
    }

    // For every other case, the text should change with the usual
    // behavior...
    else {
        return true
    }

    // ...otherwise return false since the updates have already
    // been made
    return false
}

也实现textViewDidChangeSelection，以防止用户改变光标的位置，而占位符是可见的。(注意:textViewDidChangeSelection在视图加载之前被调用，所以如果窗口是可见的，只检查文本视图的颜色):

func textViewDidChangeSelection(_ textView: UITextView) {
    if self.view.window != nil {
        if textView.textColor == UIColor.lightGray {
            textView.selectedTextRange = textView.textRange(from: textView.beginningOfDocument, to: textView.beginningOfDocument)
        }
    }
}

以下是我解决这个问题的方法(Swift 4):

这个想法是做出最简单的解决方案，允许使用不同颜色的占位符，调整占位符大小，不会覆盖委托，同时保持所有UITextView函数正常工作。

import UIKit

class PlaceholderTextView: UITextView {
    var placeholderColor: UIColor = .lightGray
    var defaultTextColor: UIColor = .black

    private var isShowingPlaceholder = false {
        didSet {
            if isShowingPlaceholder {
                text = placeholder
                textColor = placeholderColor
            } else {
                textColor = defaultTextColor
            }
        }
    }

    var placeholder: String? {
        didSet {
            isShowingPlaceholder = !hasText
        }
    }

    @objc private func textViewDidBeginEditing(notification: Notification) {
        textColor = defaultTextColor
        if isShowingPlaceholder { text = nil }
    }

    @objc private func textViewDidEndEditing(notification: Notification) {
        isShowingPlaceholder = !hasText
    }

    // MARK: - Construction -
    override init(frame: CGRect, textContainer: NSTextContainer?) {
        super.init(frame: frame, textContainer: textContainer)
        setup()
    }

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        super.init(coder: aDecoder)
        setup()
    }

    private func setup() {
        NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(textViewDidBeginEditing(notification:)), name: UITextView.textDidBeginEditingNotification, object: nil)
        NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(textViewDidEndEditing(notification:)), name: UITextView.textDidEndEditingNotification, object: nil)
    }

    // MARK: - Destruction -
    deinit { NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(self) }
}

var placeholderLabel : UILabel!
  textviewDescription.delegate = self
    placeholderLabel = UILabel()
    placeholderLabel.text = "Add a description"

   func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
             placeholderLabel.isHidden = !textviewDescription.text.isEmpty
    }

协议版本的clearlight的答案上面，因为协议是伟大的。随便放哪都行。扣篮!

extension UITextViewPlaceholder where Self: UIViewController {

    // Use this in ViewController's ViewDidLoad method.
    func addPlaceholder(text: String, toTextView: UITextView, font: UIFont? = nil) {
        placeholderLabel = UILabel()
        placeholderLabel.text = text
        placeholderLabel.font = font ?? UIFont.italicSystemFont(ofSize: (toTextView.font?.pointSize)!)
        placeholderLabel.sizeToFit()
        toTextView.addSubview(placeholderLabel)
        placeholderLabel.frame.origin = CGPoint(x: 5, y: (toTextView.font?.pointSize)! / 2)
        placeholderLabel.textColor = UIColor.lightGray
        placeholderLabel.isHidden = !toTextView.text.isEmpty
    }

    // Use this function in the ViewController's textViewDidChange delegate method.
    func textViewWithPlaceholderDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
        placeholderLabel.isHidden = !textView.text.isEmpty
    }
}