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I like dark themes. However, the default theme of Jupyter notebooks is light, and I can't find the option to change the theme/background-color. How is this done?

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  • 6
    using conda: anaconda.org/conda-forge/jupyterthemes Commented Mar 30, 2019 at 16:49
  • 3
    Use JupyterLab: Settings -> JupyterLab Theme -> JupyterLab Dark Commented Mar 23, 2022 at 15:49

19 Answers 19

Reset to default
702

This is easy to do using the jupyter-themes package by Kyle Dunovan. You may be able to install it using conda. Otherwise, you will need to use pip.

Install it with conda:

conda install -c conda-forge jupyterthemes

or pip:

pip install jupyterthemes

You can get the list of available themes with:

jt -l

So change your theme with:

jt -t theme-name

To load a theme, finally, reload the page. The docs and source code are here. When setting a theme, optionally also specify -T (--toolbar) in the same command to also retain the toolbar, without which the toolbar is not shown. For help, type jt -h.

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25 Comments

Note - I had to restart the jupyter server for this to work.
For the first time one may need to restart the jupyter notebook for this to work, but next time, simply just change jt -t <themes> on terminal and reload the notebook pages. It behaves something like this to me.
jupyterthemes is not on conda neither on conda-forge, the only way to install it is through pip only
I did succeed with conda after adding conda-forge channel conda config --add channels conda-forge
If jupyterthemes is on conda-forge the answer should be `conda install jupyterthemes -c conda-forge
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223

Follow these steps

Install jupyterthemes with pip:

pip install jupyterthemes

Then choose the themes from the following and set them using the following command. Once you have installed successfully, many of us thought we need to start the jupyter server again, just refresh the page.

Set the theme with the following command:

jt -t <theme-name>

Available themes:

  • onedork
  • grade3
  • oceans16
  • chesterish
  • monokai
  • solarizedl
  • solarizedd

Screenshots of the available themes are in its Github repository.

When setting a theme, optionally also specify -T (--toolbar) in the same command to retain the toolbar, without which the toolbar is not shown. For help, type jt -h.

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11 Comments

This doesn't really warrant a new answer. Just a minor edit to the existing one.
There's also a chrome extension for this. It basically does the same thing but without terminal interaction.
what's the name of the classic theme? If I want to revert and go back to the original classic one?
For the sake of completeness, other than the listed themes, these 2 are also available: gruvboxd, gruvboxl as of Jan 2019
Refreshing the page to load a new theme doesn't work if you have jupyter running before installing jupyterthemes. In that case, just restart the server, and then refresh the page.
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131

After I changed the theme it behaved strangely. The font size was small, cannot see the toolbar and I really didn't like the new look.

For those who want to restore the original theme, you can do it as follows: 

jt -r

You need to restart Jupyter the first time you do it and later refresh is enough to enable the new theme.

or directly from inside the notebook

!jt -r
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1 Comment

thanks! i agree didnt like it and the option right below here suggesting to add dark reader to chrome instead is better
85

Instead of installing a library inside Jupyter, I would recommend you use the 'Dark Reader' extension in Chrome (you can find 'Dark Reader' extension in other browsers, e.g. Firefox). You can play with it; filter the URL(s) you want to have dark theme, or even how define the Dark theme for yourself. Below are couple of examples:

enter image description here

enter image description here

I hope it helps.

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10 Comments

I think this is the best approach, because we usually want dark theme which it provides and furthermore, it is easy to check the real visual of the document we are creating only by a click. (important at publish time)
Yeah... that's all good and well but the Dark Reader does not know that a jupyter notebook should color words. There's no syntax coloring, which makes this option a no-no.
There is one issue though. If you try selecting a few characters using mouse, the selection is not visible on the black background.
I also had the issue at the beginning that the code was not highlighted or categorized. You need to change the mode from dynamic to filter or filter+. That changed the behaviour of the dark reader significantly.
I was getting no syntax highlighting -- all my normally-colored code appears as just white on black -- but enabled Dark Reader, went to "More", and changed to "Filter+", and now I have colored code! I like this option because the other themes changed the fonts, whereas this just changes the colors.
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44

You can do this directly from an open notebook:

!pip install jupyterthemes !jt -t chesterish

Restart the jupyter server for the theme's application

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5 Comments

don't you have to restart the jupyter server for this to take effect?
True, you'll need to restart the kernel if I recall correctly
it doesn't work, you need to restart the server
This isn't working in my case. I do not have a server or anything. I run it on my local PC and save the notebooks on the harddisk. Does the same steps apply to me? And what all things do we need to do after these commands? I ran the commands and they run. The file of custom css is also created in config directory, but no change in theme.
@Meet If you run the !jt ... command in a notebook, refresh the browser cache with CTRL + SHIFT + R or SHIFT + F5 . (Cheat sheet for Chrome. Check under Web page shortcuts: support.google.com/chrome/answer/…). You won't have to restart anything to have the theme take effect.
24 
!pip install jupyterthemes

Run this library:

from jupyterthemes import get_themes import jupyterthemes as jt from jupyterthemes.stylefx import set_nb_theme

and this:

set_nb_theme('monokai')

themes:

'monokai', 'chesterish', 'oceans16', 'solarizedl', 'solarizedd', 'grade3', 'onedork'

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2 Comments

Thank you - from all the locked down corporate users who are blocked by Applocker from running arbitrary executables like jt.exe. A similar method to reset to default would help (jt -r equivalent). I see that deleting or blanking out custom.css is one workaround.
simple and to the point
18

Simple, global change of Jupyter font size and inner & outer background colors (this change will affect all notebooks).

In Windows, find config directory by running a command: jupyter --config-dir

In Linux it is ~/.jupyter

In this directory create subfolder custom Create file custom.css and paste:

/* Change outer background and make the notebook take all available width */ .container { width: 99% !important; background: #DDC !important; } /* Change inner background (CODE) */ div.input_area { background: #F4F4E2 !important; font-size: 16px !important; } /* Change global font size (CODE) */ .CodeMirror { font-size: 16px !important; } /* Prevent the edit cell highlight box from getting clipped; * important so that it also works when cell is in edit mode */ div.cell.selected { border-left-width: 1px !important; }

Finally - restart Jupyter. Result:

darker backgrounds

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4 Comments

Please, how to undo it?
Remove the file which you created (custom.css) and restart Jupyter.
It works, but I have to clear my browser cache though.
for those (like me) who wants a done ready to paste css file; (Not mine!) I tried this one and it's flawless raw.githubusercontent.com/powerpak/jupyter-dark-theme/master/…
12

For Dark Mode Only: -

I have used Raleway Font for styling

To C:\User\UserName\.jupyter\custom\custom.css file

append the given styles, this is specifically for Dark Mode for jupyter notebook...

This should be your current custom.css file: -

/* This file contains any manual css for this page that needs to override the global styles. This is only required when different pages style the same element differently. This is just a hack to deal with our current css styles and no new styling should be added in this file.*/ #ipython-main-app { position: relative; } #jupyter-main-app { position: relative; }

Content to be append starts now

.header-bar { display: none; } #header-container img { display: none; } #notebook_name { margin-left: 0px !important; } #header-container { padding-left: 0px !important } html, body { overflow: hidden; font-family: OpenSans; } #header { background-color: #212121 !important; color: #fff; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 50px; } .navbar-collapse { background-color: #212121 !important; color: #fff; border: none !important } #menus { border: none !important; color: white !important; } #menus .dropdown-toggle { color: white !important; } #filelink { color: white !important; text-align: centerimportant; padding-left: 7px; text-decoration: none !important; } .navbar-default .navbar-nav>.open>a, .navbar-default .navbar-nav>.open>a:hover, .navbar-default .navbar-nav>.open>a:focus { background-color: #191919 !important; color: #eee !important; text-align: left !important; } .dropdown-menu, .dropdown-menu a, .dropdown-submenu a { background-color: #191919; color: #fff !important; } .dropdown-menu>li>a:hover, .dropdown-menu>li>a:focus, .dropdown-submenu>a:after { background-color: #212121; color: #fff !important; } .btn-default { color: #fff !important; background-color: #212121 !important; border: none !important; } .dropdown { text-align: left !important; } .form-control.select-xs { background-color: #191919 !important; color: #eee !important; border: none; outline: none; } #modal_indicator { display: none; } #kernel_indicator { color: #fff; } #notification_trusted, #notification_notebook { background-color: #212121; color: #eee !important; border: none; border-bottom: 1px solid #eee; } #logout { background-color: #191919; color: #eee; } #maintoolbar-container { padding-top: 0px !important; } .notebook_app { background-color: #222222; } ::-webkit-scrollbar { display: none; } #notebook-container { background-color: #212121; } div.cell.selected, div.cell.selected.jupyter-soft-selected { border: none !important; } .cm-keyword { color: orange !important; } .input_area { background-color: #212121 !important; color: white !important; border: 1px solid rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.1) !important; } .cm-def { color: #5bc0de !important; } .cm-variable { color: yellow !important; } .output_subarea.output_text.output_result pre, .output_subarea.output_text.output_stream.output_stdout pre { color: white !important; } .CodeMirror-line { color: white !important; } .cm-operator { color: white !important; } .cm-number { color: lightblue !important; } .inner_cell { border: 1px thin #eee; border-radius: 50px !important; } .CodeMirror-lines { border-radius: 20px; } .prompt.input_prompt { color: #5cb85c !important; } .prompt.output_prompt { color: lightblue; } .cm-string { color: #6872ac !important; } .cm-builtin { color: #f0ad4e !important; } .run_this_cell { color: lightblue !important; } .input_area { border-radius: 20px; } .output_png { background-color: white; } .CodeMirror-cursor { border-left: 1.4px solid white; } .box-flex1.output_subarea.raw_input_container { color: white; } input.raw_input { color: black !important; } div.output_area pre { color: white } h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { color: white !important; font-weight: bolder !important; } .CodeMirror-gutter.CodeMirror-linenumber, .CodeMirror-gutters { background-color: #212121 !important; } span.filename:hover { color: #191919 !important; height: auto !important; } #site { background-color: #191919 !important; color: white !important; } #tabs li.active a { background-color: #212121 !important; color: white !important; } #tabs li { background-color: #191919 !important; color: white !important; border-top: 1px thin #eee; } #notebook_list_header { background-color: #212121 !important; color: white !important; } #running .panel-group .panel { background-color: #212121 !important; color: white !important; } #accordion.panel-heading { background-color: #212121 !important; } #running .panel-group .panel .panel-heading { background-color: #212121; color: white } .item_name { color: white !important; cursor: pointer !important; } .list_item:hover { background-color: #212121 !important; } .item_icon.icon-fixed-width { color: white !important; } #texteditor-backdrop { background-color: #191919 !important; border-top: 1px solid #eee; } .CodeMirror { background-color: #212121 !important; } #texteditor-backdrop #texteditor-container .CodeMirror-gutter, #texteditor-backdrop #texteditor-container .CodeMirror-gutters { background-color: #212121 !important; } .celltoolbar { background-color: #212121 !important; border: none !important; }

Dark Mode for Jupyter Notebook

Dark Mode for Jupyter Notebook

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2 Comments

This answer has become obsolete in 2020.
why is it obsolete?
11

Use FireFox Plug-in "Darker Jupyter".

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2 Comments

Thank you, that's the right approach for me. 'jupyterthemes' all messed up on my system. (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS with default fonts and Firefox)
It will work as long as Firefox is the default browser. Are there any such plugins for other browsers as well?
8

You Can Follow These Steps.

  1. pip install jupyterthemes or pip install --upgrade jupyterthemes to upgrade to latest version of theme.
  2. after that to list all the themes you have :jt -l
  3. after that jt-t <themename>for example jt -t solarizedl
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7

To install the Jupyterthemes package directly with conda, use:

conda install -c conda-forge jupyterthemes

Then, as others have pointed out, change the theme with jt -t <theme-name>

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7

My complete solution:

  1. Get Dark Reader on chrome which will not only get you a great Dark Theme for Jupyter but also for every single website you'd like (you can play with the different filters. I use Dynamic).

  2. Paste those lines of code in your notebook so the legends and axes become visible:

from jupyterthemes import jtplot jtplot.style(theme='monokai', context='notebook', ticks=True, grid=False)

You're all set for a disco coding night !

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7

With the latest version of Jupyter, you can now choose between Light and Dark themes from Settings -> Theme:

enter image description here

Works for both Jupyter Lab and Notebook.

Note for plots

Plotting libraries are (at least as of 2023-09-24) unaware of the dark/light theme, so they will default to white. You can configure them to use dark mode with:

  • Plotly:

    import plotly.io as pio pio.templates.default = "plotly_dark"

  • Matplotlib:

    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt plt.style.use('dark_background')
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5 
conda install jupyterthemes

did not worked for me in Windows. I am using Anaconda.

But, 

pip install jupyterthemes

worked in Anaconda Prompt.

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1 Comment

You need to specify the right collection for conda: conda install -c conda-forge jupyterthemes
5

Another option if you're using google chrome and want a dark theme that makes working in jupyter/webpages for hours much easier on the eyes and also keeps the color scheme within your code readable is to use the "Auto Dark Mode for Web Contents" flag within experiments - chrome://flags - I usually go with the "Enabled with selective image inversion" option.

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5

You can change themes using set_nb_theme from your running notebook

!pip install jupyterthemes from jupyterthemes import get_themes import jupyterthemes as jt from jupyterthemes.stylefx import set_nb_theme set_nb_theme('chesterish')

pasting from https://www.kaggle.com/getting-started/97540

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2

If there is anyone interested in running the anaconda in docker with themes enabled

docker run -t --rm -p 8888:8888 -v $(pwd):/opt/notebooks continuumio/anaconda3 /bin/bash -c "pip install jupyterthemes; jt -t onedork; /opt/conda/bin/jupyter notebook --ip=0.0.0.0 --port=8888 --notebook-dir=/opt/notebooks --allow-root --no-browser;"
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2

As previously mentioned, you can install jupyterthemes which is more widely used.
But, I also can prefer and recommend jupyter-themer which is easier to use and is not effecting the default shape of jupyter-notebook.

Installation: pip install jupyter-themer

The repository with documentation and examples (*for now, examples are stored in a not merged pull-request): @github: jupyter-thamer

My favourite customization: jupyter-themer -b dark -c zenburn.

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0

If you're having an error while trying to use PIP, you can use CMD and run your commands through.

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