Color Theme

Ghostty ships with hundreds of built-in themes that can be selected with one line of configuration by using the theme configuration option. For example, to use the popular Catppucin theme:

theme = catppuccin-frappe

Tip

Don't forget to reload your configuration after changing the theme.

The built-in themes are sourced from iterm2-color-schemes and updated in the Ghostty repository on the main branch weekly. If you want to contribute a new theme, please contribute it to iterm2-color-schemes and it will be automatically picked up by Ghostty.

To see a list of available themes, you can use the +list-themes CLI:

ghostty +list-themes

For built-in themes, you can also view the theme list online at iterm2-color-schemes. This also includes a preview of each theme.

Ghostty supports specifying separate light and dark themes.

theme = dark:catppuccin-frappe,light:catppuccin-latte

When separate light and dark themes are specified, Ghostty will automatically switch between the light and dark theme based on the system appearance.

Themes are no different than any other configuration file in Ghostty; they just happen to typically only set color options. However, a theme file could set any configuration option such as cursor styles, fonts, etc.

Warning

Themes can modify any configuration option, so be careful when using themes from untrusted sources. Always review the theme file before using it to ensure it doesn't contain malicious configuration.

The primary difference between a theme file and a regular configuration file is how it is loaded. Themes are loaded first and any conflicting options in the user configuration will override the theme (versus config-file which is loaded after the user configuration).

To author a custom theme, create a new file and set the following options:

• background
• foreground
• cursor-color
• selection-foreground
• selection-background
• palette

Theme files can be located anywhere on the filesystem. The theme configuration option allows for absolute paths. However, if you want to reference a theme by name, they have to be located in specific directories.

Theme lookup by name searches two directories:

1. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ghostty/themes
2. $PREFIX/share/ghostty/themes

Below is an example of a complete theme file:

palette = 0=#51576d
palette = 1=#e78284
palette = 2=#a6d189
palette = 3=#e5c890
palette = 4=#8caaee
palette = 5=#f4b8e4
palette = 6=#81c8be
palette = 7=#a5adce
palette = 8=#626880
palette = 9=#e67172
palette = 10=#8ec772
palette = 11=#d9ba73
palette = 12=#7b9ef0
palette = 13=#f2a4db
palette = 14=#5abfb5
palette = 15=#b5bfe2
background = 303446
foreground = c6d0f5
cursor-color = f2d5cf
selection-background = 626880
selection-foreground = c6d0f5