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The list-themes command displays or previews all available themes for Ghostty, with an interactive TUI when run from a terminal.

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Usage

ghostty +list-themes [options]

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Description

When run from a TTY, this command launches an interactive TUI that allows you to preview themes with live color palettes and examples. When output is piped or --plain is specified, it outputs a simple list of theme names. Ghostty searches for themes in two directories:
  1. User themes directory: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ghostty/themes or ~/.config/ghostty/themes
  2. System themes directory: Ghostty’s resources directory (shipped themes)
    • macOS: Ghostty.app/Contents/Resources/ghostty/themes
    • Linux: share/ghostty/themes (installation-dependent)
    • From source: zig-out/share/ghostty/themes
You can override the resources directory with the GHOSTTY_RESOURCES_DIR environment variable.

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Options

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--path
boolean
Show the full path to each theme file alongside the theme name.
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--plain
boolean
Force plain listing mode even when running in a TTY. Disables the interactive TUI preview.
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--color
string
default:"all"
Specify the color scheme of themes to include in the list:
  • all - Show all themes (default)
  • dark - Show only dark themes
  • light - Show only light themes
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-h, --help
flag
Display help information for this command.

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Interactive TUI Keys

When running in interactive mode (TTY), use these keys: 
j, ↓, +          Move down 1 theme
k, ↑, -          Move up 1 theme
ScrollDown       Move down 1 theme
ScrollUp         Move up 1 theme
PgDown           Move down 20 themes
PgUp             Move up 20 themes
Home             Go to start of list
End              Go to end of list

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Examples

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Launch Interactive Preview

ghostty +list-themes
Opens the interactive TUI with theme previews, color palettes, and navigation.

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List All Themes (Plain)

ghostty +list-themes --plain

3024-day (builtin)
3024-night (builtin)
aesthetic (builtin)
afternoon (builtin)
alien-blood (builtin)
alucard (builtin)
argonaut (builtin)
atom (builtin)
...

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List with Paths

ghostty +list-themes --path --plain

3024-day (builtin) /usr/share/ghostty/themes/3024-day
3024-night (builtin) /usr/share/ghostty/themes/3024-night
custom-theme (user) /home/user/.config/ghostty/themes/custom-theme

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List Only Dark Themes

ghostty +list-themes --color=dark --plain
Filters to show only themes designed for dark mode.

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Pipe to Grep

ghostty +list-themes --plain | grep -i nord
Find themes matching “nord” in the name.

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Applying Themes

To apply a theme from the preview:
  1. Navigate to the desired theme
  2. Press ⏎ to view save instructions
  3. Either:
    • Press w to write to auto/theme.ghostty and add config-file = ?auto/theme.ghostty to your main config
    • Manually add theme = <theme-name> to your config file

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Notes

The TUI preview shows the actual color palette, foreground/background colors, and example terminal output with syntax highlighting to help you see how the theme looks in practice.
User themes in your config directory take precedence over built-in themes with the same name.

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See Also