appearance.md

Appearance

Customize Zed's visual appearance to match your preferences. This guide covers themes, fonts, icons, and other visual settings.

For information on how the settings system works, see All Settings.

Customize Zed in 5 Minutes

Here's how to make Zed feel like home:

  1. Pick a theme: Press {#kb theme_selector::Toggle} to open the Theme Selector. Arrow through the list to preview themes in real time, and press Enter to apply.

  2. Choose an icon theme: Run icon theme selector: toggle from the command palette to browse icon themes.

  3. Set your font: Open the Settings Editor with {#kb zed::OpenSettings} and search for buffer_font_family. Set it to your preferred coding font.

  4. Adjust font size: In the same Settings Editor, search for buffer_font_size and ui_font_size to tweak the editor and interface text sizes.

That's it. You now have a personalized Zed setup.

Themes

Install themes from the Extensions page ({#action zed::Extensions}), then switch between them with the Theme Selector ({#kb theme_selector::Toggle}).

Zed supports separate themes for light and dark mode with automatic switching based on your system preference:

{
  "theme": {
    "mode": "system",
    "light": "One Light",
    "dark": "One Dark"
  }
}

You can also override specific theme attributes for fine-grained control.

→ Themes documentation

Icon Themes

Customize file and folder icons in the Project Panel and tabs. Browse available icon themes with the Icon Theme Selector (icon theme selector: toggle in the command palette).

Like color themes, icon themes support separate light and dark variants:

{
  "icon_theme": {
    "mode": "system",
    "light": "Zed (Default)",
    "dark": "Zed (Default)"
  }
}

→ Icon Themes documentation

Fonts

Zed uses three font settings for different contexts:

Setting Used for
buffer_font_family Editor text
ui_font_family Interface elements
terminal.font_family Terminal

Example configuration:

{
  "buffer_font_family": "JetBrains Mono",
  "buffer_font_size": 14,
  "ui_font_family": "Inter",
  "ui_font_size": 16,
  "terminal": {
    "font_family": "JetBrains Mono",
    "font_size": 14
  }
}

Font Ligatures

To disable font ligatures:

{
  "buffer_font_features": {
    "calt": false
  }
}

Line Height

Adjust line spacing with buffer_line_height:

  • "comfortable" — 1.618 ratio (default)
  • "standard" — 1.3 ratio
  • { "custom": 1.5 } — Custom ratio

UI Elements

Zed provides extensive control over UI elements including:

  • Tab bar — Show/hide, navigation buttons, file icons, git status
  • Status bar — Language selector, cursor position, line endings
  • Scrollbar — Visibility, git diff indicators, search results
  • Minimap — Code overview display
  • Gutter — Line numbers, fold indicators, breakpoints
  • Panels — Project Panel, Terminal, Agent Panel sizing and docking

→ Visual Customization documentation for all UI element settings

What's Next