# Making your own theme

You can add your own themes to `~/.config/omarchy/themes`. Just copy one of the existing ones as a base (look in `/usr/share/omarchy/themes`), then tweak to your delight. As long as your theme is inside that folder, it'll be included in the theme selection menu.

The main file you have to tweak is `colors.toml`. That defines the color set that's then used to generate configurations for the terminal (Foot/Alacritty/Ghostty/Kitty), btop, Chromium, Hyprland, Neovim, Helix, VSCode, Obsidian, and the entire Omarchy shell (top bar, menu, notifications, OSD, and lock screen).

You can also use the included Aether application to create a new theme using a lovely GUI interface to play with colors and search for backgrounds. Just start it via the apps menu on `Super + Alt + Space`.

### Light mode

If you're making a light mode theme, set `mode = "light"` at the top of your `colors.toml`. Then it'll automatically be paired with light mode for all the apps. (The old way of dropping an empty file called `light.mode` in the root of your theme still works too.)

### Icon colors

If you'd like to color-match the file manager icons to your theme, add a file called `icons.theme` with the name of the icon set you want to use. By default, the options are: `Yaru Yaru-blue Yaru-dark Yaru-magenta Yaru-olive Yaru-prussiangreen Yaru-purple Yaru-red Yaru-sage Yaru-wartybrown Yaru-yellow`.

### Unlock image

Themes supplied with `unlock.png` and `preview-unlock.png` images will be listed under _Style > Unlock_. Your `unlock.png` should preferably be a transparent png. And you can create the preview image using `omarchy plymouth preview`.

### Theming apps Omarchy doesn't cover

If you use an app that isn't in that list, you can teach Omarchy to theme it yourself with a template. Drop a file in `~/.config/omarchy/themed/` named after the config it generates plus a `.tpl` extension, and write the config with `{{ background }}`, `{{ foreground }}`, `{{ accent }}`, `{{ red }}`, `{{ color0 }}` through `{{ color15 }}`, and the rest of the palette as placeholders. Every time you switch themes, the file is regenerated with that theme's colors.

There's a fully commented `alacritty.toml.tpl.sample` in that folder to copy from — it lists every variable you can use, plus the `_strip` and `_rgb` modifiers for apps that want their colors without the `#` or as decimal RGB. Your templates take priority over Omarchy's own, so you can also use this to override how a built-in app gets themed.

### Distributing your theme

If you want to distribute your theme so others can use it, you need to put it on a public git server, like GitHub. Then people can install it using _Install > Style > Theme_ in the Omarchy menu using that URL. It's recommended that you follow the naming convention of `omarchy-[themename]-theme`, as the theme will show correctly as just `[themename]` in the theme selection menu after installation.

You can have your theme added to [the extra themes page](43-extra-themes.md) by pinging @tahayvr on [the #omarchy Discord](https://discord.gg/tXFUdasqhY).