Why applications look different after an Omarchy theme change

You choose a theme: the bar changes immediately, a new terminal looks right, but the file manager still uses different colors. That does not establish one common failure. These surfaces may use different theme mechanisms, and applying dark mode is not the same as supplying every color in an Omarchy palette.

This guide targets the pinned source’s theme pipeline. Keep using the theme gallery to choose appearances; use this page to understand differences and make a small template experiment. Check your installed version and paths first, especially if a tutorial mentions the older ~/.config/omarchy/current/ layout.

1. Follow the theme from source to application

built-in theme + personal theme overlay
  → clean staging directory
  → palette and template generation
  → active theme under ~/.local/state/omarchy/current/theme/
  → shell notification and app-specific color/reload commands
  → theme-set hooks

There are two separate questions: was a correct config generated, and did the application consume it? A terminal already running can receive color updates while still retaining a font size read at startup. An editor with its own theme setting can continue using it even when generated files are correct.

The active directory is rebuilt during theme activation. Editing files there can create a temporary success that disappears on the next selection. Keep permanent changes in a personal theme, a personal template, or the relevant app’s own settings.

2. Decide what kind of matching you expect

Surface	Mechanism in this source	What to check
Omarchy Shell	Palette and shell appearance tokens	Personal shell.toml overrides
Foot	Generated include plus running-terminal color updates	Include path, fresh window and actual selection colors
Other supported terminals	Terminal-specific files and reload methods	Correct terminal config and its override order
Browser	Browser-specific integration	Selected browser, policy/theme settings, own extensions
Editor	Editor-specific integration	Active app theme and personal plugins/settings
GNOME applications	Light/dark preference, GTK theme name and icon theme	Do not equate those with a complete custom palette
App with no integration	Its own appearance controls	An explicit integration is needed for automatic matching

Web-page colors belong to the page or browser extension too. A themed browser frame does not require every website to change. Compare equivalent surfaces: terminal selection with terminal selection, not a browser page with a menu background.

3. Investigate a file manager that does not look identical

Record the current theme, then compare one supported terminal and the file manager. In the normal graphical user session, query:

omarchy theme current
gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme
gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme
gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme

The pinned GNOME integration writes light/dark preferences, selects Adwaita or Adwaita-dark, and sets an icon theme. It does not generate an entire GTK4/libadwaita color stylesheet. If Nautilus changes light/dark appearance or icons but does not adopt the bar’s exact palette, that can be the integration’s boundary rather than a broken theme activation.

These queries describe stored settings; an app can still ignore a setting or need reopening. Save work and reopen only the affected app to compare. Do not reset all themes to fix an application’s independent appearance.

For a community GTK hook, inspect its generated file and supported app versions before trying it. A script designed for one theme may emit invalid colors when another palette lacks the keys it expects. Existing GTK CSS should be saved, and the hook itself must be disabled when undoing it; restoring CSS while leaving a writer active is not a lasting rollback.

4. Check Foot’s configuration and the generated palette

The shipped personal Foot file starts with an include of the active theme:

[main]
include=~/.local/state/omarchy/current/theme/foot.ini

Inspect your own file; do not replace its contents with this excerpt. If the include is absent or points to an old path, that explains why newly opened windows may differ. Personal color sections can also affect startup settings. See the installed Foot manual for how it resolves multiple definitions.

With grep available, inspect only the relevant lines:

grep -n 'selection-' ~/.local/state/omarchy/current/theme/foot.ini

If the generated file looks right but a running window differs, open a new Foot window. The theme helper uses terminal color escape sequences for running instances; a program running inside the terminal can also change terminal colors. If the fresh window is correct, isolate the app/runtime state before changing the template.

5. A practical personal template experiment

Goal: use the theme accent for selected terminal text’s background across compatible themes. Before starting, record the current theme and back up any existing ~/.config/omarchy/themed/foot.ini.tpl. If absent, record the absence. A template with this name affects all theme selections that generate this output.

In a session where OMARCHY_PATH points to your installation, confirm the source template exists. Then copy the complete template, retaining all its palette definitions:

mkdir -p ~/.config/omarchy/themed
cp -i "$OMARCHY_PATH/default/themed/foot.ini.tpl" ~/.config/omarchy/themed/foot.ini.tpl

Do not overwrite an existing template unless you have saved it and intentionally want a new baseline. In your copy, change only these two existing lines:

selection-foreground={{ background_strip }}
selection-background={{ accent_strip }}

_strip emits a hex color without #, as this output expects. This file is a template; the braces belong in the .tpl, not in the final generated foot.ini. The chosen foreground/background pair is an experiment, not an automatic contrast guarantee.

Apply the recorded theme again through Style → Theme. Inspect the generated selection lines, then open a new terminal and select this harmless printed sample:

printf 'Selection sample 123 中文\n'

Check both letters and Chinese glyphs. Compare a second light or dark theme and then return to the original. If selected text is hard to read, restore the original two lines; a consistent rule across themes does not guarantee a readable pair for every palette.

6. Understand why a personal template can be bypassed

The ordering in this source is:

1. An eligible theme’s hand-written output file already in staging is retained.
2. If output is missing, a personal template with that output name renders first.
3. Otherwise, the built-in template provides the output.

Thus a theme shipping its own eligible foot.ini can bypass a user template. Themes cloned through the supported theme installer have code-capable files, including terminal configs and Lua, filtered during staging; those outputs are regenerated from the palette. A locally authored theme and an installed clone are treated differently. This filtering is a defined installation boundary, not a sandbox or a reason to bypass it.

If generation does not happen, also check for colors.toml, the precise template filename, and whether you applied the theme after editing. Adding a template for an unsupported app only generates a file in the active directory; the app must be configured to read it and reload it. That full integration is a separate task.

7. Restore and test the actual boundary

Restore the saved personal template, or move the newly created template to a fresh archive name that does not end in .tpl. Apply the original theme again, inspect the regenerated file, and open a fresh terminal. Editing the active output back by hand is not a permanent undo.

If you changed app settings or added a hook, restore those separately. Theme selection does not restore every app’s preferences. Keep a small matrix of shell, fresh terminal, existing terminal and affected app; it tells you whether the remaining difference is generation, reload, personal override or unsupported integration.

Sources and related guides

Theme activation · Template precedence · GNOME integration · Foot template · Official theme authoring

Continue with fonts and text size, the theme gallery, or configuration maintenance.