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Overview

AppFlowy offers extensive customization options to make your workspace truly yours. From themes and colors to fonts and regional settings, you can tailor every aspect of your AppFlowy experience.
Customization settings sync across devices when using a cloud workspace, ensuring a consistent experience everywhere.

Theme & Appearance

Light and Dark Mode

AppFlowy supports both light and dark themes:
1

Open Settings

Navigate to Settings → Workspace
2

Select Appearance

Choose from:
  • Light: Optimized for daytime use
  • Dark: Reduced eye strain in low-light environments
  • System: Automatically match your OS theme
3

Apply Changes

Changes take effect immediately

Light Mode

Clean, bright interface perfect for well-lit environments

Dark Mode

Reduced blue light and eye strain for comfortable night use

Built-in Themes

AppFlowy comes with several pre-designed themes:
  • Default: Clean and modern
  • Dandelion: Warm and inviting
  • Lemonade: Fresh and vibrant
  • Community Themes: Additional themes created by the community

Changing Themes

1

Access Theme Settings

Go to Settings → Workspace → Theme
2

Browse Themes

Click the theme dropdown to view all available themes
3

Preview & Select

Select a theme to preview it instantly
4

Customize Further

Adjust individual colors if needed (see Custom Colors below)
Theme selection is immediately applied—no save button needed.

Custom Colors

Document Text Colors

Customize text and background colors in your documents:
1

Open Color Settings

Navigate to Settings → Workspace → Theme
2

Customize Text Color

Click on Document Text Color to open the color picker
3

Set Custom Color

  • Use the color wheel for visual selection
  • Enter a hex color value (e.g., #FF5733)
  • Adjust opacity level (0-100%)
4

Apply to Documents

Your custom color will be used for new text

Cursor and Selection Colors

Personalize your editing experience with custom cursor and selection colors:

Custom Cursor Color

  1. Go to Settings → Workspace → Theme
  2. Click Cursor Color
  3. Choose a color from the palette or enter a hex value
  4. Your cursor will update immediately

Custom Selection Color

  1. In the same Theme settings
  2. Click Selection Color
  3. Choose your preferred highlight color
  4. Adjust opacity for subtle or bold highlighting
Custom cursor and selection colors help you personalize your editing environment and can improve visibility based on your preferences.

Color Picker Features

Hex Values

Enter precise color codes (e.g., #FF6B6B)

Opacity Control

Adjust transparency from 0-100%

Color Wheel

Visual color selection interface

Recent Colors

Quick access to recently used colors

Font Customization

Workspace Font

Change the default font family for your entire workspace:
1

Open Font Settings

Navigate to Settings → Workspace → Workspace Font
2

Browse Fonts

AppFlowy supports hundreds of Google Fonts:
  • System Default: Uses your OS default font
  • Google Fonts: Extensive library of web fonts
  • Custom Fonts: Upload your own fonts (advanced)
3

Select Font

Click on a font to preview it in your workspace
4

Apply Changes

The font updates across all documents immediately
  • Roboto: Modern and readable
  • Open Sans: Clean and professional
  • Lora: Elegant serif for long-form content
  • Fira Code: Perfect for code snippets
  • Inter: Optimized for screen reading
Font selection affects the entire workspace but can be overridden per-document with inline formatting.

Font Size Scaling

Adjust text size for better readability:
  1. Go to Settings → Workspace
  2. Look for Text Scale or Font Size
  3. Choose from:
    • Small: Compact view (0.7-0.8x)
    • Medium: Default size (1.0x)
    • Large: Enhanced readability (1.0x, but mobile supports up to 1.2x)
On mobile, you can scale the app’s display size independently for optimal viewing on smaller screens.

Document Customization

Page Width

Control the maximum width of your document content:
1

Open Document Settings

In any document, click More (⋮)Page Style
2

Adjust Width

Use the slider or select from presets:
  • Narrow (600px)
  • Medium (800px)
  • Wide (1000px)
  • Full Width
3

Apply to Document

Changes affect the current document only

Text Direction

Support for right-to-left (RTL) languages:
  1. Navigate to Settings → Workspace → Text Direction
  2. Select:
    • Left-to-Right (LTR): For English, Spanish, Chinese, etc.
    • Right-to-Left (RTL): For Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, etc.
  3. RTL Toolbar Items: Toggle on to optimize toolbar for RTL languages
RTL support includes proper text alignment, toolbar positioning, and menu layouts.

Layout Direction

Control the overall UI layout direction:
  • LTR (Left-to-Right): Sidebar on the left, standard layout
  • RTL (Right-to-Left): Sidebar on the right, mirrored layout

Regional Settings

Date Format

Customize how dates are displayed throughout AppFlowy:
1

Open Date Settings

Go to Settings → Workspace
2

Select Date Format

Choose from multiple formats:
  • US: MM/DD/YYYY (03/09/2026)
  • UK: DD/MM/YYYY (09/03/2026)
  • ISO: YYYY-MM-DD (2026-03-09)
  • Friendly: Month DD, YYYY (March 09, 2026)
3

Sync Across Devices

Date format syncs across all devices under your account (since v0.9.8)
Date format affects date pickers, database date fields, and document timestamps.

Time Format

Set 12-hour or 24-hour time display:
  • 12-hour: 2:30 PM
  • 24-hour: 14:30
  1. Navigate to Settings → Workspace
  2. Find Time Format setting
  3. Select your preference
  4. Changes sync across devices

Week Start Day

Customize which day starts the week in calendar views:
1

Access Calendar Settings

Go to Settings → Workspace
2

Set Week Start Day

Choose:
  • Sunday: North American standard
  • Monday: ISO standard, used in most of the world
3

Apply to Calendars

Affects all calendar views and date pickers
Week start day, date format, time format, and language settings all sync across devices since version 0.9.8.

Language

AppFlowy supports multiple languages:

English

Full support

Spanish

Español

French

Français

German

Deutsch

Chinese

简体中文

Japanese

日本語

Italian

Italiano

Russian

Русский

More...

25+ languages

Changing Language

  1. Go to Settings → Workspace
  2. Select Language from the dropdown
  3. Choose your preferred language
  4. Restart AppFlowy to apply changes (if required)

Workspace Icons & Branding

Workspace Icon

Customize your workspace with a unique icon:
1

Open Workspace Settings

Navigate to Settings → Workspace
2

Change Icon

Click on the current workspace icon
3

Select New Icon

Choose from:
  • Emoji icons
  • SVG uploads
  • Custom images
4

Save Changes

Your new icon appears in the sidebar and workspace switcher
Workspace name and icon customization is not available for local/offline workspaces.

Page Icons & Covers

Personalize individual pages:
  • Page Icon: Add an emoji or custom icon to any page
  • Cover Image: Add a banner image to documents
    • Upload custom images
    • Choose from Unsplash integration
    • Set solid colors as covers

Advanced Customization

Custom Themes

Create and upload your own themes:
1

Download Theme Template

Get the JSON theme template from AppFlowy’s GitHub
2

Edit Theme File

Modify colors, fonts, and styling in the JSON file
3

Upload Theme

Go to Settings → Workspace → Theme → Upload Custom Theme
4

Apply Your Theme

Select your uploaded theme from the dropdown
Community themes are available on GitHub. Check out creations from other AppFlowy users!

Document Padding

Adjust the inner spacing of your documents:
  1. Navigate to Settings → Workspace → Theme
  2. Find Document Padding setting
  3. Adjust the slider for more or less whitespace
  4. Preview changes in real-time

Shortcuts Customization

Customize keyboard shortcuts to match your workflow:
1

Open Shortcuts

Navigate to Settings → Shortcuts
2

Find Command

Browse or search for the command you want to customize
3

Set New Shortcut

Click on the shortcut and press your preferred key combination
4

Resolve Conflicts

AppFlowy will warn you if the shortcut is already in use
Access the shortcuts guide anytime by clicking the ? button in the bottom-right corner of AppFlowy.
Resize the sidebar to your preference:
  • Hover over the right edge of the sidebar
  • Click and drag to resize
  • Double-click the edge to reset to default width

Collapsed Sidebar

Maximize content space:
  1. Click the collapse button (◀) at the top of the sidebar
  2. Sidebar automatically collapses when window is small
  3. Setting persists across sessions

Favorites Organization

Customize your favorites section:
  • Drag to reorder: Click and drag favorite pages (since v0.8.1)
  • Group by space: Organize favorites within spaces
  • Quick access: Pin frequently used pages

Database View Customization

Custom Icons

Add icons to database views:
  1. Open a database (Grid, Board, or Calendar)
  2. Click on the view name at the top
  3. Select Add Icon
  4. Choose from emojis or upload custom images

View-Specific Settings

Each database view can have independent settings:
  • Filters and sorts
  • Hidden columns
  • Column widths
  • Compact mode
Since v0.8.5, you can enable compact mode for Grid and Kanban views to display more data per screen.

Mobile Customization

Mobile-Specific Settings

On iOS and Android:
  • Display Scaling: Adjust app size for your screen
  • Page Style: Customize layout, font, and font size per page
  • Dark Theme: Improved dark mode experience (since v0.5.1)

Mobile Widgets

iOS Widgets

Quick Page Access, Recent Pages, Favorites

Android Widgets

Recent Pages and Favorites widgets

Troubleshooting Customization

  • Try restarting AppFlowy
  • Check if theme file is valid (for custom themes)
  • Reset to default theme and reapply
  • Ensure font is installed on your system
  • Verify font name is spelled correctly
  • Try a different font to test
  • Ensure you’re using a cloud workspace (not local/offline)
  • Check your internet connection
  • Try logging out and back in
  • Verify hex color codes are correct
  • Check opacity settings
  • Test in both light and dark modes

Next Steps

Plugins

Extend AppFlowy with plugins and integrations

Vault Workspace

Create a private, offline workspace

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