Themes

A theme recolors the accent, apps, terminal, text editor, top bar and wallpaper at once. Twenty-four ship with the image; one command restores stock GNOME.

Pick one

Open Themes from the app grid (or Super + T on a new account, if free). Type to filter, Enter applies, Esc closes. Or:

* marks the current theme. Swatches: background, accent, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan.

What a switch changes

A switch writes every target or, if anything fails, none. Fonts and icons are never touched.

Target	What it recolors	You see it
`scheme`	the system accent, and Dark or Light Style for one-variant themes	at once, everywhere
`gtk4`	GTK 4 and libadwaita apps	new windows
`gtk3`	GTK 3 apps	new windows
`ptyxis`	the terminal’s palette, on every profile	at once
`gtksourceview`	Text Editor, and anything else built on GtkSourceView	at once
`wallpaper`	the desktop and lock-screen backgrounds	at once
`shell`	the top bar, menus, quick settings, notifications, switchers, dialogs, app folders, the screenshot tool and the on-screen keyboard	at once
`btop`	btop’s colors	at once
`flatpak`	lets Flatpak apps read the same GTK colors	next launch
`agents`	Claude Code, Gemini CLI and opencode draw with the terminal’s colors	next start

The login screen isn’t a target: it comes up before anyone logs in, so it wears Pulsar’s own colors, the same for everyone. So does the lock screen’s prompt.

Two targets reach outside the desktop and can be left out; the choice persists:

Dark and light

Sixteen themes have both variants and follow Dark Style in Quick Settings. Settings you changed by hand (btop’s, your agent’s theme) are kept. --variant dark|light pins one.
Eight have one variant: Amber, Dracula, Eclipse, Magnetosphere, Phosphor, Poimandres and Synthwave ’84 (dark), and Alucard (light). They set Dark or Light Style and ignore the switch.
Phosphor and Amber tint every ANSI color toward the phosphor while keeping red distinct from green.

Apps that were already open

GTK apps read colors at startup. After a switch, Pulsar lists apps with the old palette and offers Restart, Later or Don’t ask again. Restart quits each app like Ctrl + Q (unsaved work gets its save dialog) and reopens only those that quit.

Put it back

Originals are saved on first change and restored byte for byte. Shared files (your gtk.css, btop.conf) lose only the theme’s lines. Settings you changed since are kept.
revert goes to GNOME’s defaults and turns off the theme’s Shell extension; your other extensions stay. --to image goes to Pulsar’s defaults.

Make your own

Import any base16 or base24 scheme (a wallpaper is generated from it). The import warns when a slot isn’t the color its name says; fix it with --set:

Your themes: ~/.local/share/pulsar/themes/; shipped ones: /usr/share/pulsar/themes/. Each is a folder with a theme.toml; copy a shipped one to start.

Or ask a coding agent: the image’s theme skill builds one from a scheme, photo or mood and checks its contrast (Coding agents).

New accounts start in the Pulsar theme. An already-customized account (accent, wallpaper, GTK or Shell theme, terminal palette) is left as is and told once that themes exist. This runs once per account, never after a revert.

Files written, revert rules, GNOME checks: How theming works.

Written with help from AI and reviewed by a person before publishing. Spotted a mistake? Let us know.