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:

Pick a theme: Press cmd-k cmd-t|ctrl-k ctrl-t to open the Theme Selector. Arrow through the list to preview themes in real time, and press Enter to apply.
Choose an icon theme: Run icon theme selector: toggle from the command palette to browse icon themes.
Set your font: Open the Settings Editor with cmd-,|ctrl-, and search for buffer_font_family. Set it to your preferred coding font.
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 (zed: extensions), then switch between them with the Theme Selector (cmd-k cmd-t|ctrl-k ctrl-t).

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

All Settings — Complete settings reference
Key bindings — Customize keyboard shortcuts
Vim Mode — Enable modal editing

pFad - Phone/Frame/Anonymizer/Declutterfier! Saves Data!