Built-in Omarchy themes: choose, inspect and recover the defaults

Built-in themes are a useful starting point because Omarchy supplies their integration, not only a wallpaper. Choose by how your actual work looks: plain terminal output, editor selections, file-manager controls and the desktop shell. A screenshot of an empty desktop cannot answer all of those questions.

The official themes guide provides previews and the selector. This page adds the file ownership and comparison workflow. Paths and precedence below are tied to source commit defbf90e, a development snapshot; check your installed layout before applying those details to a different release.

Four things called “the theme”

Thing	Location in the pinned layout	Meaning
Bundled source	$OMARCHY_PATH/themes/<name>/	Shipped palette, backgrounds and integration files
Personal theme	~/.config/omarchy/themes/<name>/	User-controlled source; a matching name takes precedence
Generated active files	~/.local/state/omarchy/current/theme/	Output of selection; regenerated on a later selection
Personal backgrounds	~/.config/omarchy/backgrounds/<name>/	Your additional images, separate from the palette

A built-in name in the picker does not prove the bundled directory supplied the current appearance. If a personal catppuccin directory exists, it can shadow bundled Catppuccin. Editing active generated files produces a change that can disappear on the next selection. Editing bundled files can conflict with future package updates.

Find the names your machine actually offers

Open Style → Theme, or the documented Super + Ctrl + Shift + Space selector. The site’s gallery is a reviewed catalogue, not your machine’s live inventory. Counts differ with version; do not use a fixed “all N themes” claim to troubleshoot a missing entry.

For the pinned command set:

omarchy-theme-list
omarchy-theme-current
omarchy-theme-dir catppuccin

The first lists available names, the second identifies the current one, and the third resolves which source directory wins for a particular name. Its expected bundled path is under the installation’s theme directory; a path under your home means investigate that personal source. These are inspections, not reset commands. See the directory resolver for the exact precedence.

Compare themes without changing every variable

Keep the same monitor, brightness, window sizes and application content. Start with three rather than cycling rapidly through the whole list:

Preference to investigate	Starting candidates	Detailed route
A light desktop	Catppuccin Latte, Flexoki Light, White	Light themes
Pastel dark colors	Catppuccin	Catppuccin
Warm, brown-gray surfaces	Gruvbox	Gruvbox
Green-gray surfaces	Everforest	Everforest
Dark ink-like surfaces	Kanagawa	Kanagawa

These are palette-based descriptions, not guarantees of comfort or accessibility. For each candidate, read a page of your own code, select text, inspect a search match, and find an inactive control. Record the weak surface: “comments are hard to read” is actionable; “theme is bad” is not. Test the final two during your real task, not only in a screenshot session.

If a built-in theme looks wrong

First determine whether the whole theme or one application is wrong. A matching shell and new terminal with a differently colored website can be normal. Application theming explains integration boundaries.

For a suspected shadowing problem, resolve the source directory and back up the personal directory elsewhere before moving it out of the theme search location. Select the built-in theme again, then compare a fresh application window. Restore your saved directory if you need your customization back. Do not delete the entire ~/.config/omarchy tree: it holds unrelated settings too.

If no personal shadow exists, inspect personal templates and the application’s overrides. A missing bundled directory is a package/version problem, not a reason to download a community repository with the same name. Record the installed release and errors before a package repair.

What selecting a theme does not restore

Selection does not reset every font, window rule, keybinding or app preference. It does not promise that the firmware unlock image matches the desktop lock screen; Style → Unlock addresses a separate boot surface in the official guide. It also cannot undo a personal hook that changes an unrelated setting.

Keep a small theme notebook: original theme, candidate, source directory, changed personal files and one reason for your choice. That is enough to reproduce your preference after an update. For themes outside the bundled set, continue with community installation and removal.