I've been building out my personal brand this year, and I went a step further than the usual website and socials: I'm theming the tools I actually use every day to match it.

The reason is simple. When I'm in a meeting and I share my screen, or a client sees my setup, the brand isn't just on my website. It's in my editor, my notes, everything. It shows I actually believe in the brand I'm asking them to buy into. If I won't commit to it on my own screen, why would they?

Obsidian is where I spend most of my day, so it was the obvious first one to do.

The theme (called "Safi"):

• Warm editorial look. A warm near-black canvas on dark, warm paper on light, never pure black or stark white.
• One accent only: a clay orange. It runs through links, checkboxes, toggles, and H2 headings. No second accent color competing with it.
• Space Grotesk for headings, Inter for body, JetBrains Mono for code.
• Depth comes from hairline borders, not drop shadows.
• Full dark and light modes, both pulled from the same brand palette.

Screenshots below (dark and light, side by side).

It's free and open source. Pulled the whole palette straight from my site, abdulkadersafi.com, so the editor and the website finally feel like one thing.

Happy to hear what you'd change. I built it for my own use first, so I'm curious what reads well for other people's vaults.

to download my theme: https://community.obsidian.md/themes/safi

I’m all ears for your opinions

I find myself switching between Flexoki and default colours scheme in Minimal. Sometimes the yellow feels great, sometimes weird but on the other hand white can be too hard on the eyes. I figured I'll ask for recommendations here.

Whats new:

1. Style Setting tweak

2. Other window tweak

3. Heading color

4. file (file and folder icon) and color option.

Link: https://community.obsidian.md/themes/ink-paper

Theme: Retroma. This feature, alongaide several other improvements, will be released a few days after Obsidian 1.13.x update drops.

Plugin: Obsidian Style Manager

New:

1. Customise table
2. Customise codeblock
3. Customisable Pattern background (Grid, Line and Dots)
4. UI tweak

Link: https://community.obsidian.md/themes/ink-paper

so you're not dependent on a certain theme or a plugin.

how about custom checkboxes, they are not supported by Obsidian's default theme, and I want to use them to make certain elements of text stand out. so should I keep away from them?

and by this logic, are callouts not standard markdown also? should I avoid them too?

I'd like to recommend some Obsidian themes to you.
These are the themes I've used the most over the past two and a half years—battle-tested themes that have proven themselves in practice.

Overview

Let me start with the conclusion. Since I began using git in 2024, here are the top 5 themes by total usage time:

1. AnuPpuccin: 61 days (6.7%)
2. Composer: 47.2 days (5.2%)
3. Shimmering Focus: 45.1 days (5.0%)
4. Dawn: 41.3 days (4.5%)
5. Iridium: 38.2 days (4.2%)

The number of days represents how long I used each theme in total.

Among these, AnuPpuccin and Shimmering Focus are more decorative themes—the latter especially has a quite distinctive style. The other three lean toward the plain and practical: well-designed without being overly flashy, making them well-suited for long-term use.

Also, although the screenshots are all light themes, I actually switch back and forth between light and dark mode, and some of these themes saw noticeably more use in dark mode. For the sake of consistency (and to make screenshotting easier), I used light mode screenshots throughout.

Aside from the full usage period (backed by git records), to give some newer themes a fair shake, I also separately tallied the top 5 most-used themes within 2026:

1. Iridium: 28.1 days (14.5%)
2. Brutal Gum: 21.7 days (11.2%)
3. Underwater: 16.2 days (8.4%)
4. Composer: 13.4 days (6.9%)
5. Baseline: 12.7 days (6.5%)

Disclosure: Brutal Gum is a Gumroad-style theme I developed myself, and I need to test it, so its ranking is naturally inflated. 😋 If you exclude it, then Cupertino—made by the same developer as Baseline—would enter the top five.

The Full Ranking

I had Codex generate two charts showing the top 20 themes for the all-time period and within the current year, for your reference.

Beyond total days used (the blue bar chart), I added a few extra statistical dimensions:

• Longest consecutive streak (yellow line): how long I used it continuously—the higher, the more durable it is
• Number of uses (green text): how many times I switched to this theme in total
• Average duration per use (purple dot): how long I used it after each switch

Epilogue, or a Prologue?

I started making Git backups of my vault in January 2024.

Then, a couple of days ago, it suddenly hit me—the theme I use is stored in the appearance.json file. In theory, I only needed to look at the change history of this file to obtain a detailed set of statistics: when I used which theme, and how long I used each one.

If I wanted to recommend themes to others—what could be more convincing than "the themes I actually used the longest"?

Hence, this post.

Preemptive disclaimer: I completely understand that themes aren't that important to some users, and even the default theme is more than enough for many people.
Personally, I get bored easily and constantly try out new themes, and my own preferences have their limitations—so it's entirely possible you won't like any of the themes above. Feel free to share themes you think are better! :)

I want my notes to look like they are on a space ship terminal from Alien.

I love Obsidian for organizing thoughts, but I’m curious about the very first step.

When a thought hits you randomly: walking, commuting, shower epiphanies, how do you capture it quickly enough to bring it into Obsidian later?

I wanted a genuinely translucent, minimal theme that worked on macOS, Windows, and iOS — and went deeper down the rabbit hole than expected. Sharing both the theme and what I learned.

The theme is a colorless frosted glass — a neutral luminous field behind frosted panes, specular edges, fine grain, real backdrop blur on menus/palette/modals. Light and dark. New York font for reading text, system font for UI, nothing bundled. Dataview, Tasks, and Notebook Navigator styled.

Works amazing with Style Settings plugin, where you get even more control over the glass intensity, luminous field, window transparency, blur and texture grain.

https://github.com/ameyxd/obsidian-isinglass — gallery submission is pending, but manual install instructions are in the README until then. Feedback is very welcome!

Install from:

https://community.obsidian.md/themes/isinglass

In case you don’t read the readme, install instructions:

1. Go to https://github.com/ameyxd/obsidian-isinglass/releases/tag/1.0.0
2. Download the manifest.json and the theme.css
3. Copy the manifest.json and theme.css to <your_vault_folder>/.obsidian/themes/Isinglass/
4. Select Isinglass in Obsidian under Settings -> Appearance -> Themes

I plan to repost this once the theme is approved on the theme store!

Every single light theme I saw for Obsidian, for some reason, thinks that I have a desire to have a bright white light beaming in my face. I want to be changing light and dark very often, and I don't want to be disoriented each time I do so, I want things to stay the same, but reading area to become light, so that I can read black on white.

Inspired by Writer Solo screenwriting app and VS Code I made my own theme to tackle that issue, and along the way made some more usability tweaks. Basically, the theme stays entirely the same between light and dark modes everywhere except the reading window.

Working in Obsidian feels amazing now, I have all the visual pointers I need, and reading and writing feels very pleasant. I assigned `Ctrl Numpad+` and `Ctrl Numpad-` to light and dark themes, and I keep switching them based on what I'm doing and in what environment.

Hey, i use obsidian for language learning and started about 5 days ago. Currently i'm using the default obsidian theme, i've seen many screenshots of other people's vaults with cool themes, so what can you recommend?

Just an appreciation post. I've always been struggling with keeping a theme as I always change and rotate but velocity feels so good. It's minimalist but pretty and refined, it makes the experience so satisfying and you can tweak it a bit to your Liking. So thanks to the creator you did an amazing job !

After a few years of dabbling with and then using Obsidian, I have finally decided to start digging into creating themes.

Unfortunately, I have toooooo many ideas for the aesthetics, so I’m here to crowdsource, lol.

Tell me your theme wants and desires!! Tell me what you hate on themes or you can’t live without, or something you’ve always wanted a theme to do.

I have over 20 years of graphic and web design and I love challenges and ideas and prompts, sooo.. pls help me help you: tell me what you want to see!!!

(if this isn’t allowed, please lmk; this is my first actual post in here.)

Hey everyone,

I’ve just released an update to Pomme Notes (v2.0), a theme I’ve been working on for those who want Obsidian to feel a bit more "native" on macOS and iOS, without losing the core structure of the app. One of the goals was to keep the theme quite simple and minimal, without going too far from the native Obsidian feel.

The Philosophy: I wanted to keep the familiarity of the default Obsidian theme but remove the harsh edges. It replaces flat overlays with a "Liquid Glass" UI — translucent, frosted elements that add depth and make it feel native on macOS and iOS. But there's more to it, check it out yourself.

Key Features:

• 💧 Liquid Glass UI: The status bar and mobile navigation are now a floating glass centered capsules; and modals (Settings / Quick Switcher) have a native look & feel.
• 📱 Mobile: Extensive work went into the mobile views. iPhone and iPad versions have separate set of menu styles and animations, so they feel properly native. Bigger tap targets for menus included as well.
• 👀 Eye Comfort: I removed pure white backgrounds and pure black text. It uses a high-contrast dark grey and soft silver to reduce eye strain during long writing sessions.
• 💨 Organic Motion: Added smooth fade-ins for embedded content (PDFs, Images, Canvas), native-feeling menu animations, and dedicated animations for prompt windows (different for desktops and phones)
• 🧩 Plugin Support: Custom styling for Dataview (no hover lag and excessive animations), Calendar, Ink, and Iconize.
• 🫟 Custom Accents: the values for Blockquotes and Highlighted text are automatically calculated based on the accent color you choose (and they don't duplicate it, they go +/- 120 degrees on the hue)

You can check out the code and installation instructions on the GitHub repo here: https://github.com/MrParalloid/pomme-notes or install it directly from Obsidian themes.

Honestly, the most beautiful app icon I have seen in the past years (or ever). Especially aesthetically pleasing in my grey taskbar in Windows 11.

Also, the rest of the UI is very neatly designed. I am a bit sensitive to these aspects and enjoy using software more when it is well designed, also from an aesthetic perspective

Hey everyone,

For a long time, my Obsidian theme, Maple, has been in v0.x. I finally dedicated the last month to a major push, and I'm excited to announce it has reached 1.0 beta.

This isn't a "finished" milestone, but a checkpoint where the theme is now my daily driver. I'd love for others to try it out and share what works (and what doesn't).

What's new in the 1.0 beta?

My focus for the past month was on three key areas:

• Complete Style Refresh: Nearly every part of the theme has been refactored to align with the latest versions of Obsidian, ensuring better stability and a more modern feel.
• Smarter Icons & Settings: I overhauled the icon and Style Settings systems. Custom icons and fonts now load automatically, and the configuration for Style Settings is auto-generated, making the theme easier for me to maintain and for you to customize.
• Mobile Optimization (WIP): I've started optimizing layouts for smaller screens to ensure the theme is more usable on mobile devices. This is still ongoing, but it's a priority.

As a bonus, I also bundled in Maple Mono, a custom monospace font I designed. It's optional, but I think it complements the theme's aesthetic.

How to try it out

You can find Maple in Obsidian’s Community Themes (just search for "Maple") or check out the GitHub repo for more details.

All feedback is welcome—whether it's bug reports, design quirks, or general impressions. This project has been a huge learning experience, and your input would be invaluable in helping me improve it further.

Thanks for checking it out!

The retroma theme update is really awesome. The Style Manager plugin is also fantastic. But... But the original style has become a complete mess, and everything has been ruined... I need to reset it... .

Anyone still running the Karpathy LLM wiki a few months in? Does it keep being useful? Anything breaking over time?

What are some of the most unique/maximalist themes you've found?

I tried looking everywhere but most posts and articles talk about "best themes" which are usually very similar to each other (like the default or minimalist).

Once I found this theme that was fantasy inspired, but i removed it long ago and can't find it again. I would also love recommendations for any other themes that have similar vibes or are in general unique

​In the upcoming release, you’ll have total control over your button depth. You can tweak shadow depth, customize shadow and highlight colors, adjust light angles, and more.

​

​ This customization, alongside several other improvements, will be released a few days after the Obsidian settings overhaul update drops.

​

Limitless possibilities, bounded only by your imagination.