Themes

SaveVault ships four built-in themes — Dark, Light, Synthwave Dark, and Synthwave Light — plus a full theme builder. (This very website is themed with the same tokens — try the switcher in the header.)

Switching

Use Settings → Appearance → Theme for a quick picker, or open the Themes page for the builder. System follows your OS light/dark preference (the Steam edition defaults to Dark, since Game Mode reports no preference). Whether the Themes page appears in the sidebar is controlled by Settings → Appearance → Show Themes in Sidebar (show_themes_nav, on by default).

savevault-cli config set theme dark          # system, dark, or light
savevault-cli config set show_themes_nav false

Building a theme

Each theme is 24 semantic tokens — surfaces, text, accent, status colors, and chrome. The builder gives you per-token color and alpha editors with a live preview, plus duplicate / save / delete, and a contrast audit that flags combinations that fall below readable contrast.

The built-in themes are read-only. Select one and choose Duplicate To Customize to get an editable copy (for example “Dark Copy”), then change its tokens and save. Deleting a theme asks for confirmation; if it is the active theme, SaveVault reverts to your base appearance setting (System, Dark, or Light).

Sharing

Import and export individual themes as TOML. If an imported theme’s id is already taken, SaveVault saves it under the next free id (-1, -2, …) rather than overwriting, and reports “Imported as …”. User themes are stored as TOML files in a themes folder inside your config directory (%APPDATA%\SaveVault\themes\ on Windows, ~/.config/SaveVault/themes/ on Linux, ~/Library/Application Support/SaveVault/themes/ on macOS) and stay machine-local — they aren’t bundled into a settings export, so copy the files or use per-theme export to move them between machines. If a built-in theme such as Synthwave Dark is your active theme, that choice does travel in a settings export.

In the Steam edition, the Themes page also talks to the Steam Workshop. Themes you subscribe to appear under a Workshop group in the theme dropdown, with Refresh and Browse Workshop buttons beside it, and are read-only: use Duplicate To Customize to edit a copy. Publish To Workshop (Update On Workshop once it has been published) is on the theme editor, and tags the item Light or Dark automatically from how bright its primary background color is. Subscribed themes are contrast-audited: one with low contrast still loads, but is badged Low contrast.