Customizing Your Theme

Personalizing Zed’s appearance helps create a comfortable coding environment tailored to your preferences. Learn how to customize themes and create your own color schemes.

Choosing a Theme

Access the theme selector:

Cmd + K, Cmd + T
# Open theme picker
 
Or:
Cmd + Shift + P → "theme: select"

Built-in Themes

Zed comes with several high-quality themes:

• One Dark - Popular dark theme from Atom
• Solarized - Light and dark variants
• Dracula - Eye-friendly dark theme
• GitHub - Clean light theme
• Nord - Arctic-inspired color palette

Customizing Theme Settings

Open your settings:

Cmd + ,
# Open settings
 
Or edit settings.json directly

Theme Configuration

{
  "theme": {
    "mode": "system",
    "light": "GitHub Light",
    "dark": "One Dark"
  }
}

This automatically switches themes based on your system appearance.

Creating Custom Themes

Define Your Color Palette

{
  "themes": [
    {
      "name": "My Custom Theme",
      "appearance": "dark",
      "style": {
        "background": "#1e1e1e",
        "foreground": "#d4d4d4",
        "cursor": "#aeafad",
        "selection": "#264f78",
        "lineHighlight": "#2a2a2a"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Syntax Highlighting

Customize code colors:

{
  "syntax": {
    "keyword": "#569cd6",
    "string": "#ce9178",
    "comment": "#6a9955",
    "function": "#dcdcaa",
    "variable": "#9cdcfe"
  }
}

UI Customization

Font Settings

{
  "buffer_font_family": "JetBrains Mono",
  "buffer_font_size": 14,
  "ui_font_size": 14
}

Terminal Appearance

{
  "terminal": {
    "font_family": "Fira Code",
    "font_size": 13,
    "line_height": 1.5
  }
}

Pro Tips

• Preview themes quickly by cycling through them with repeated Cmd + K, Cmd + T
• Use ligatures for better code readability: "buffer_font_features": {"calt": true}
• Adjust transparency for a modern look
• Save your custom theme in a separate file for easy sharing
• Check out the Zed theme gallery for community-created themes