How to Change Omarchy Themes and Wallpapers
Use Omarchy's built-in theme and background pickers, understand what a theme changes, and know when a community theme needs closer inspection.
Changing an Omarchy wallpaper and changing an Omarchy theme are related, but they are not the same action. A background picker swaps the image behind your windows. A theme can restyle the bar, menus, notifications, lock screen, terminal, and supported apps as well as the desktop. If you only want a different picture, keep the theme you like and change its background.
The controls here follow the official themes manual, checked on September 29, 2026. Built-in theme names and counts can change, so use the picker on your own machine as the current list.
Pick a built-in theme first
Press Super + Space, then choose Style → Theme. The direct shortcut is Super + Ctrl + Shift + Space. Select a theme and look at a few surfaces, not just the wallpaper: the top bar, the terminal, a menu, and a notification. Those are part of the same system-wide choice according to the themes manual.
The manual’s examples include Tokyo Night, Catppuccin, Gruvbox, Kanagawa, and light options such as Flexoki Light. Their names help you find them in the selector; a theme’s exact palette is best judged in the preview rather than from a list of adjectives. If you use Obsidian, the manual notes one extra step: select the Omarchy theme inside Obsidian’s own appearance settings to follow the desktop theme.
Change the background without changing the theme
Press Super + Ctrl + Space to choose among the current theme’s backgrounds. This is the fastest way to answer a simple question: do you dislike the theme’s colors, or only the image behind your windows? Try a second background before replacing the entire palette.
The hotkeys manual also points to ~/.config/omarchy/backgrounds/<theme name> for extra images and Install → Style → Background in the menu. Keep a picture under the theme whose palette you want to retain. Changing the background is a local visual choice; it does not rewrite the theme’s color definitions.
Know what a community theme adds
For more choices, the official theme page links an extra themes collection. Omarchy’s theme-creation manual explains the difference between a theme you write under ~/.config/omarchy/themes and one installed from someone else’s Git repository. A locally authored theme can contain whatever files you put there. For a Git-installed theme, Omarchy drops certain executable or behavior-changing files and regenerates them from colors.toml on your machine.
That guard is useful, but still inspect the repository, its preview, and the current installation instructions. A community theme may include backgrounds and other visual assets you do not want. If you only need a different color set, try a built-in theme first; if you only need a different picture, use the background control.
If you want to make your own
The theme manual says to copy an existing theme from /usr/share/omarchy/themes into your user theme directory and edit its colors.toml. That file feeds generated colors for Omarchy’s shell and supported apps. It also documents Aether, a graphical color and background tool available from the apps menu. Work in your user directory; package files under /usr/share/omarchy can be replaced during updates.
For a first customization, finish with two observations: which theme name you chose and whether you changed the theme or just its background. That is enough to reproduce the look later without mistaking a wallpaper change for a system-wide color change.
References
- Themes documents the selectors, shortcuts, and surfaces a built-in theme styles.
- Hotkeys gives the background shortcut and user image location.
- Making your own theme explains local themes,
colors.toml, Aether, and Git-installed theme boundaries.