20 Great Notepad++ Themes and Colour Schemes

Twenty amazing Notepad++ themes and colour schemes and visual styles to use in 2020 with light, dark and elegant styles.

By Tim Trott | Online Tools and Converters | June 25, 2013

To use any of these Notepad++ themes and colour schemes, download the XML file and move it to your Notepad++ themes folder (typically C:\Program Files\Notepad++\Themes or C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\Themes). Restart Notepad++ if it is running, then from the settings menu select style configuration. You can select themes from the drop-down list.

Notepad++ Themes and colour schemes By Tim Trott

Here are a few colour schemes that I have created over the years for use with Notepad++. If there is any particular colour scheme you would like to see, drop me a line in the comments section below!

Neon Notepad++ Theme

Neon Colour Schemes By Techmantium
Neon Colour Schemes By Techmantium

If you want a dark, high contrast and bright colour scheme, look no further than our Neon theme. You can't get much more Neon than this!

Neon Notepad++ Theme by Tim Trott

Nautical but Nice

Techmantium Nautical but Nice Notepad++ Theme
Techmantium Nautical but Nice Notepad++ Theme

A dark blue pastel Notepad++ colour scheme based on colours of the sea using large fonts to create an eye-pleasing theme.

Nautical but Nice Notepad++ Theme by Tim Trott

Girly Edition

Techmantium Girly Edition Notepad++ Colour Scheme
Techmantium Girly Edition Notepad++ Colour Scheme

A high contrast Notepad++ theme using white, blues and pinks which makes a surprisingly easy to read dark theme.

Girly Edition Notepad++ Theme by Tim Trott

Notepad++ Themes from the Internet

And here is a list of great Notepad++ colour schemes from elsewhere on the internet.

Notepad ICLS

Notepad++ ICLS Theme
Notepad++ ICLS Theme

This theme is based on the default layout of Notepad++. Only a select few basic colours are used which are consistent between file types. This is different to most themes which use a unique colour for *everything* into one overwhelming rainbow of code. It's easy to comprehend code layout at-a-glance.

Notepad++ ICLS Theme

Authors Site 

Notepad++ Visual Studio 2015 Dark Theme

Visual Studio 2012/2013 Dark Theme
Visual Studio 2012/2013 Dark Theme

A simple theme for notepad++ to match Visual Studio 2012/2013/2015 dark style.

Notepad++ Visual Studio 2015 Dark Theme

Authors Site 

Solarized Light Themes

Solarized Light Notepad Theme
Solarized Light Notepad Theme

Solarized is a sixteen-colour palette (eight monotones, eight accent colours) designed for use with terminal and GUI applications. Solarized reduces brightness contrast but, unlike many low-contrast colour schemes, it retains contrasting hues for syntax highlighting readability.

Solarized Light Theme for Notepad++

Authors Site 

Solarized Dark Themes

Solarized Dark Notepad Theme
Solarized Dark Notepad Theme

Solarized is a sixteen-colour palette (eight monotones, eight accent colours) designed for use with terminal and GUI applications. Solarized reduces brightness contrast but, unlike many low-contrast colour schemes, it retains contrasting hues for syntax highlighting readability.

Solarized Dark Theme for Notepad++

Authors Site 

Waher-style Theme

Waher-style Notepad++ Colour Theme
Waher-style Notepad++ Colour Theme

A comfortable colour scheme with a dark background and eye-friendly colours for working long hours. The styles used are intended for a web developer and cover the most common files associated with web development.

Waher-style Theme for Notepad++

Authors Site 

Bespin theme for Notepad++

Bespin theme for Notepad++
Bespin theme for Notepad++

Mozilla introduced an experimental web-based code editor called Bespin which uses a brown-coloured theme which looks nice and is now ported to Notepad++.

Bespin theme for Notepad++

Authors Site 

Tomorrow Theme

Tomorrow Notepad++ Theme
Tomorrow Notepad++ Theme

A bright theme with pastel colours and sensible syntax highlighting. The download contains about 12 different themes all based on similar shades.

Authors Site 

Material Theme (Dark) for Notepad++

Material Theme (Dark) for Notepad++
Material Theme (Dark) for Notepad++

Dracula

Dracula Notepad++ Theme
Dracula Notepad++ Theme

A dark theme for Notepad++ and 40+ apps

Dracula Notepad++ Dark Theme

Authors Site 

Obsidian PyCs

Bbsidian PyCs Notepad++ Theme
Bbsidian PyCs Notepad++ Theme

Notepad++ colour theme [Obsidian PyCs] based on the built-in Obsidian theme and inspired by Adobe Source Code Pro font announcement screenshot.

Obsidian PyCs Notepad++ Theme

Authors Site 

Slush & Poppies

Slush & Poppies Notepad++ Theme
Slush & Poppies Notepad++ Theme

This is a custom port of SublimeText's theme Slush & Poppies for Notepad++

Slush & Poppies for Notepad++

Authors Site 

Nord Notepad++ Theme

Nord Notepad++ Theme
Nord Notepad++ Theme

An arctic, north-bluish clean and elegant Notepad++ colour theme.

Nord Notepad++ Theme

Authors Site 

Notepad++ Visual Studio Light Theme

Notepad++ Visual Studio Theme
Notepad++ Visual Studio Theme

A simple theme for notepad++ to match Visual Studio colours. It's not exactly the same as the default but it's fairly close.

Notepad++ Visual Studio Light Theme
Authors Site 

Disappeared

These Notepad++ themes have disappeared. If anyone has the files I can host them here or link to updated sites.

Eclipse colour scheme for Notepad++

Eclipse color scheme for Notepad++
Eclipse color scheme for Notepad++

A colour scheme which mimics the Eclipse IDE scheme as far as possible.

Authors Site 

ChrisMar035 Notepad++ Theme

ChrisMar035 Visual Style for Notepad++
ChrisMar035 Visual Style for Notepad++

Another dark colour scheme from the blog of ChrisMar035 which is clear and easy to read.

Authors Site 

Arabian Nights

Arabian Nights Notepad++ Colour Scheme
Arabian Nights Notepad++ Colour Scheme

A colourful and black and white colour scheme for Notepad++ with clear distinction between elements.

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  1. JN

    On Wednesday 24th of February 2021, Joshua N. said

    Thank you very much for this Notepad++ themes collection!

  2. KT

    On Friday 6th of November 2020, KnightTim said

    Just thought I would help with some of the disappeared themes, I was able to use the wayback machine at https://web.archive.org to find a couple.

    ChrisMar035
    Site: https://web.archive.org/web/20160123181637/http://chrismar035.com/2010/01/08/notepad-color-configurator-and-styler-xml/
    DL: http://gist.github.com/272115
    or DL: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/codegoalie/272115/raw/a82ef68081e47aa9eb9186fc8d7cded40a1bcab8/styler.xml

    Notepad++ Visual Studio Light Theme
    Site: https://web.archive.org/web/20130702221611/http://www.shilony.net/2012/09/02/notepad-visual-studio-theme
    DL: https://web.archive.org/web/20130702221611/http://shilony.net/files/Notepad++%20Visual%20Studio%20Theme.zip

  3. On Tuesday 18th of February 2020, said

    Been using neon for quite a while now with a few tweaks. I love it. Thanks.

  4. HE

    On Friday 6th of December 2019, Hellon said

    VS2019-Dark (A fork from VS2015-Dark) : https://github.com/hellon8/VS2019-Dark-Npp

    1. CR

      On Tuesday 18th of February 2020, Cristobal replied

      This turned into my favorite npp dark theme, easy to read and easy with the eyes.

  5. JU

    On Tuesday 10th of September 2019, Justin said

    Hi Tim,

    I'm trying to download xml file from this page but when I do all it does it open up a new tab in my browser showing the actually XML code. how do I download the actual XML and not just view the code?

    1. Tim Trott

      On Friday 13th of September 2019, Tim Trott  Post Author replied

      You can either right-click the link and select "Save Link As" or when the XML is opened in a tab you can right-click and select "Save As"

  6. TO

    On Friday 5th of July 2019, Tom said

    These changes often require admin rights to install, which many users don't have. You might want to suggest to your readers that they can download NP++ from portableapps.com. All of their apps can be "installed" into any directory, such as C:\MyApps. Since config files are also stored in C:\MyApps, those config files can be changed or updated without admin rights. The xml files described in your article can then be installed into the MyApps version of NP++. Obviously, they will need to create new shortcuts that launch the C:\MyApps version of NP++.

    1. DY

      On Wednesday 7th of August 2019, Dylan replied

      Not true. You may place them in %APPDATA%\Notepad++\themes (create location if it doesn't exist.)

  7. BR

    On Wednesday 22nd of May 2019, brian said

    Hey ya'll I feel like a noob asking but when trying to utilize the Neon theme all the text shows in black and white opposed to the vibrant colors. Any idea how I can fix this?

    1. AL

      On Friday 17th of January 2020, Alok replied

      Hi Brian,
      Go to Language->Select yours code programming language.
      Like for VB.NEt code, Language->V-> Visual Basic.

  8. SA

    On Saturday 27th of January 2018, Sandeep said

    If you like Material Design and dark themes, you should check out this theme for Notepad++

    https://notepadplusplus.wixsite.com/theme : Material Theme for Notepad++

  9. AS

    On Thursday 24th of March 2016, antony stewart said

    I wrote a notepad++ theme colors randomizer, it takes any theme and can randomize all the colors it works in HSV color space with given brightness darkness and color saturation markers for pastel/candy colors... here is a pack of 700 themes and here is the project page:

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/114667999/700 high contrast noetpad plusplus thiemes.rar

    http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/wrote-a-random-notepad-theme-generator.393215/#post-2564857

  10. MJ

    On Tuesday 29th of December 2015, MJ said

    I'd love to use a 'Firefox DeepDark Theme' inspired theme.

  11. ER

    On Friday 24th of April 2015, erm3nda said

    I know those themes are for the content, but... is there any way to edit the editor icons and layout? It's a little bit ugly.

  12. CP

    On Thursday 23rd of April 2015, Chankey Pathak said

    Cool themes, but I'm unable to use them as I don't have admin rights, any idea how to do it without admin rights?

  13. BK

    On Monday 16th of March 2015, Bret Kuhns said

    Here's a Notepad++ theme to match Visual Studio's "Dark" theme: https://github.com/SeanCline/Npp-VS2012-Dark

  14. SA

    On Saturday 7th of March 2015, Samiru said

    https://timtrott.co.uk/notepad-colour-schemes/

    i think need to update this article soon as possible, cus nearly i found wonderful theme is more similar to BBEdit color schema . it is CodeExpert download from https://smallapp.wordpress.com/codeexpert/ . and its need programing font called Code New Roman(also available there)

  15. On Sunday 1st of March 2015, Ali Çömez said

    Thanks you :) my notepad++ Beatifull themes

  16. BR

    On Tuesday 24th of February 2015, BlogRon said

    Great list, I use the obsidian one that comes along with the notepad++. You can configure the color and other part of fonts and everything, if you just dig a little inthe preferences section of notepad++.

  17. CO

    On Friday 2nd of January 2015, Collatz said

    Like Solarized!

  18. SR

    On Monday 22nd of December 2014, Sam Radian said

    Code Expert, the best color scheme for notepadd++,similer to BBEdit clor scheme
    you can download here @
    http://smallapp.wordpress.com/codeexpert/

  19. LA

    On Thursday 2nd of October 2014, LiquidAurum said

    How do you use the github ones? they are not in .xml format. So what do you do?

  20. MA

    On Tuesday 16th of September 2014, Matt said

    I tried right click like blah says, but it just lets me save the .jpg, not a .xmls file

  21. MA

    On Tuesday 16th of September 2014, Matt said

    NM. Now I see the links below/left of each image. I thought they were ads! :)

    These are great! Thanks for providing.

  22. BL

    On Monday 30th of June 2014, blah said

    @Thomas right-click and save as

  23. TH

    On Thursday 8th of May 2014, Thomas said

    Hey :) I can't download, it just shows the .xml file in the browser. How to fix this?

  24. FA

    On Wednesday 23rd of April 2014, fando said

    @rando Head to your notepad++ installed folder. There you should see a folder named 'themes' [without quotes ofcourse] which has all of your themes. You could open these XML document format files from notepad++ and edit color schemes.
    You are welcome.

  25. RA

    On Friday 4th of April 2014, rando said

    do you know how we could edit themes ? your article is very useful

  26. FR

    On Monday 17th of March 2014, Frank said

    OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ECLIPSE THEME!

    I recently stopped using Eclipse because it has become bloated an aggravating to use. I've been using Notepad++ for years, but not for javascript and so the color scheme was making me insane!

    Your Eclipse theme has restored order and sanity to a universe that was on the verge of going bonkity boo!

    Frank

  27. PE

    On Sunday 26th of January 2014, Pete said

    Is there anyway to change the doc switcher background. I have it open along with the document tabs, it stands out being white while the rest of my work space is darker. I like having it open and use it more than the tabs at the top.