What Is Windows Terminal Themes?

Updated

Windows Terminal Themes (windowsterminalthemes.dev) is a browser-based gallery of color schemes for Windows Terminal. It lets you browse hundreds of dark and light themes, preview how each one looks in a simulated terminal and color swatch view, and copy a theme's color definitions for use in your Windows Terminal settings. It's useful if you want a new look for your terminal but don't want to hand-pick every color value yourself.

What the site actually offers

The site is a single-purpose catalog. Based on its own description, it hosts "hundreds of themes for Windows Terminal," and the interface exposes them through a few controls:

  • Dark themes / Light themes selectors — filter the catalog by background style.
  • A theme list — a long scrollable index of named schemes (for example, 3024 Night, Dracula, GruvboxDark, Catppuccin Mocha, One Half Dark, and many more).
  • A codeblock preview — shows the theme applied to sample terminal output, including lines like CRA - compiled, Jest - failed, and a local dev server message.
  • A colours test preview — displays the theme's palette as swatches so you can judge the full color range, not just the main text color.
  • A "credit" line — attributes the currently selected theme (for example, "credit: 3024 Night - 0x3024"), which helps you trace a scheme back to its origin.

The catalog mixes well-known schemes (Dracula, Gruvbox, Solarized variants, Catppuccin) with less common ones, so it works both as a discovery tool and as a quick reference when you already know the name of a theme you want.

How you'd use it

The typical workflow is browse → preview → copy → paste into Windows Terminal:

  1. Filter with the dark or light selector to narrow the list to the style you want.
  2. Click through themes and watch the codeblock and colour previews update. The codeblock shows how text, errors, and success messages read against the background; the swatches show the full 16-color palette.
  3. Copy the theme once you find one you like. The site is built to let you copy a theme's color definitions directly.
  4. Paste into Windows Terminal. In Windows Terminal, open Settings, find your profile or the schemes array in settings.json, and add the copied scheme. Then reference it by name in the profile's colorScheme field.

The exact copy button and paste location depend on the current version of both the site and Windows Terminal, so treat the steps above as the shape of the task rather than a fixed menu path.

What to check before relying on it

  • JavaScript is required. The site's own page states "You need to enable JavaScript to run this app." With scripting disabled, you'll see nothing useful.
  • It's a gallery, not a manager. The site helps you find and copy themes; it doesn't install them or sync them across machines for you.
  • Theme names can collide or vary. Similar names (for example, multiple Catppuccin and Gruvbox entries) mean you should preview rather than assume a name matches a scheme you've seen elsewhere.
  • Verify contrast yourself. The previews are a guide, but your font, font size, and monitor affect readability. Check the colour swatches for any low-contrast pairs before committing.

Who it's for

If you already use Windows Terminal and want to change its appearance without building a palette from scratch, this site removes most of the work: you pick a name, preview it, and copy the values. If you need a theme for a different terminal emulator, the color values may still be reusable, but the site is aimed specifically at Windows Terminal.