25 desktop app themes, and a builder to make your own

A theme should be more than a dark mode switch. Barside has 25 desktop app themes, and each one restyles the whole app: fonts, controls, surfaces, menus, notes, edge tabs, the desktop bar, Spaces and the Passwords window. Choose a look inspired by Windows 11, iOS, Ubuntu or KDE Breeze, jewel-colored Glass, bold Gradients, or one of six Fluid themes whose colors drift slowly behind glass. Pick one in Settings and it applies at once, to every open window, or make your own with the theme builder, which checks contrast as you go. Your workspace colors stay exactly as you set them.

This guide lists all 25 themes, shows how to switch and how to make your own, and covers readability, motion and backups.

What a desktop app theme changes in Barside

A Barside theme is a full look, not an accent color:

• Everything you see changes: type, controls, surfaces, menus, notes, Spaces, docked tabs and the desktop bar. Open notes, workspace menus and the Passwords window change the moment you pick, and so does the search bar that opens over your other apps.
• Your colors stay: each workspace keeps its color, and so does any note you colored yourself. Every color has a light and a dark variant, and the theme picks the one that reads well on it.
• Your note fonts stay: a font you chose inside a note is kept in every theme, so the notes you write look the way you set them.
• Edge tabs keep their shape: tabs stay slim and square, at the same size, with 15-pixel titles, so a theme never moves your tabs at the edge of the screen.
• Drawings follow along: in dark themes, previews of Excalidraw drawings use Excalidraw's own dark colors.

All 25 desktop app themes

Barside

Default is the theme Barside starts with: the original violet and charcoal. Dark (black) is pure black with bright, clear type. Light is paper white with violet accents. All three use the Inter typeface.

Windows 11, iOS and Linux looks

• Windows 11 Light and Dark: Segoe type, cool layered surfaces and Fluent-style inputs; the dark version is layered charcoal with a cool blue glow.
• iOS Light and Dark: grouped surfaces, blue actions and glass-like chrome; the dark version is deep black with raised cards and luminous blue. It uses Apple's system fonts where they exist, such as on a Mac, and the bundled Inter on Windows and Linux.
• Ubuntu Light and Dark: Ubuntu Sans, warm grays and Ubuntu's orange; the dark version adds aubergine.
• KDE Breeze Light and Dark: Noto Sans, slate surfaces, crisp outlines and blue selections.

Ubuntu Sans and Noto Sans ship inside Barside. These are looks for Barside itself: they do not restyle your system or its file dialogs.

Glass

Cobalt Glass is sapphire with violet facets and icy reflections. Orchid Glass is amethyst and rose. Lagoon Glass layers jade, cyan and deep teal like sea glass. Honey Glass, the light one, is sunlit amber with peach and champagne. The layers are drawn inside Barside, with beveled, reflective edges; they do not make your desktop show through the app.

Gradients

Citrus Sky runs from lemon to sky blue. Sunset Pop mixes apricot, hot pink and lilac. Mint Bloom fades fresh mint and chartreuse into soft cream. Rose Quartz blends pink, lavender and pale blue. All four are framed in graphic black, with black title strips.

Fluid

Six dark themes where four soft color fields move very slowly behind the glass panes. Each one has its own motion:

• Aurora: teal and violet light that drifts.
• Ember: a warm orange and pink glow that breathes.
• Ocean: deep blues that sway like slow water.
• Bloom: pink and lavender petals that turn.
• Meadow: lime and green light that circles.
• Dusk: violet and magenta clouds that rise like a lava lamp.

The motion plays behind the main window, your notes and the desktop bar. It is decoration only: the fields take no clicks, screen readers skip them, and they stay still when your computer asks for less motion.

How to change your theme

1. Open Settings & backups in Barside's sidebar, or type settings in the search bar.
2. Near the top, under Look & feel, find Appearance. It shows the theme you are using.
3. Choose a family: Barside, Windows, iOS, Linux, Glass, Gradients or Fluid. Themes you made are under My themes, first.
4. Click a preview. The previews use each theme's real colors and layers.

The theme applies at once and saves itself: "Applies immediately and saves automatically. Workspace colors stay yours."

There is a faster way once you know the names. Open the search bar with Alt+Shift+Space from any app, type a theme's name, like Ocean, and choose Theme: Ocean in the results. Barside says "Theme changed." and every window follows.

Make your own theme with the theme builder

Since Barside 1.40, you can make themes of your own, with no code. Under Look & feel, choose Create a theme. The theme builder opens beside the app, and the whole window wears your draft while you change it. Save keeps it and puts it on. Cancel puts your saved theme back.

• Start anywhere. Start from any of the 25 built-in themes, a blank dark or light theme, one color (Barside builds a whole palette from it, with the color harmony you pick), a picture (its main colors become the palette) or Describe it, a few words for the AI you connected. Surprise me makes a random theme that stays readable.
• 14 colors with plain names. Backgrounds, text, accent, lines and effects. Each one has a color picker, a hex field and, where your system has one, a picker for any color on your screen.
• Type and shape. Choose the font (a bundled one, your system font or a font on your computer), text size from 90% to 115%, the corners of buttons and panels, and the style of a built-in family for title bars and buttons.
• Effects. Pick a solid, gradient or moving background with six motions, glass panels with blur, and the strength of shadows.
• Contrast checks built in. Every text color is checked against the WCAG AA level (4.5:1) on every background, including over gradients and moving colors. Fix contrast changes the fewest colors it can, keeps their hue, and says what it changed. Undo takes it back.
• Light and dark twins. One click makes a light version of a dark theme, or the other way around, and checks it again.
• Share it. Export writes a .barside-theme file, and Import a theme adds one to My themes. Barside checks every file and refuses anything that is not a theme.

Your themes come first in the gallery, under My themes, with Edit, Rename, Duplicate, a light or dark twin, Export… and Delete…. You can keep up to 50, and the search bar lists them before the built-in themes. Peek at the app slides the builder away so you can see the whole app, and the builder works with the keyboard alone.

Choosing a theme for how you work

• Bright rooms and daytime work: a light theme, such as Light, Windows 11 Light or iOS Light. Ten of the 25 themes are light.
• Late nights: Dark (black) or iOS Dark, both deep black.
• Matching your system: Windows 11 on Windows, Ubuntu or KDE Breeze on a Linux desktop, or iOS on a Mac, so Barside sits comfortably next to your other apps.
• Lots of workspace colors: a quieter theme such as Default, Windows 11 Dark or KDE Breeze lets your workspace colors do the talking.
• Something calm to look at: a Fluid theme, especially on a docked window you glance at all day.
• Screen recordings and demos: a Glass or Gradients theme gives your screen recordings a look of their own.

Readability, motion and accessibility

• Contrast. Text in every theme is checked for contrast against its surfaces, and workspace colors switch to their light or dark variant to stay readable.
• Less motion. Fluid themes follow your system's reduced-motion setting, the same one browsers read. On Windows 11, turn off Animation effects in Settings → Accessibility → Visual effects. On Windows 10, it is Show animations in Windows in Settings → Ease of Access → Display. On Linux, the setting's name depends on your desktop. Barside for Mac follows the Mac's own reduced-motion setting in the same way.
• Screen readers. The moving fields are hidden from screen readers and never take a click.
• Steady sizes. Edge tabs keep the same size and label sizes in every theme, so switching never moves anything.
• Your own themes too. The theme builder measures every text color on every background and can fix the ones that are hard to read. A moving background in your own theme also stands still when your computer asks for less motion.

Themes, backups and your other computers

Your theme is saved the moment you pick it, and it stays through restarts and updates. It also travels in a ZIP backup with your other preferences, so restoring on a new computer brings your look back. If a backup names a theme that version of Barside does not know, it falls back to Default. Themes you made travel in ZIP backups and cloud backups too, and Export and Import a theme move one to another computer.

Cloud sync, part of Barside Plus, keeps settings separate on each computer, so a laptop can use Light while a desktop uses Aurora. Read more about local-first storage and backups.

All 25 themes are in Barside for Windows, for Linux and for Mac.

Try the themes on barside.space

The website has the same 25 themes. On the barside.space home page, open the Themes tab and pick one: the whole page changes to match, Fluid motion included. It is the quickest way to find your favorite before you install. The website keeps your choice only in your browser; see how this website handles your data.

Privacy

Themes are local. They need no account and no remote font service, and choosing one sends nothing anywhere. In the theme builder, a picture you start from is read on your computer and not kept, and the list of your fonts is read only when you ask. Only Describe it goes online: Barside sends your sentence to the AI you connected, when you choose Create. If you ever press Send to support on an error, the report lists a few settings, such as your theme, so support can reproduce what you saw; read what an error report contains.

How it compares

How an app looks matters when you spend all day in it. If you are weighing note apps partly on look and feel, read the Obsidian alternative guide and the list of the best note-taking apps. Barside's approach is 25 finished themes that cover the whole app, from notes to the desktop bar, plus a free theme builder that checks contrast for you, with nothing to install or maintain.

Works well with