Theming for Confluence is now in beta

[#1]

Hello Community!

I’m excited to share that theming for Confluence Cloud is now available in beta! Joining Jira and Atlas, Confluence users can now choose Dark theme, Light theme, or match their browser’s theme setting. Try them all out and pick whichever theme works best for you — we can’t wait to hear your feedback!

Why themes?

Theming has been one of Confluence’s most requested features and we know many of you have been eagerly waiting for Dark theme. Dark theme can benefit users with visual impairments by enhancing contrast between text and background. It also helps reduce eye strain and improve readability in low-light environments. In addition to Dark theme, we’re also introducing a new Light theme with higher contrast for better accessibility.

For the past couple of months, we’ve been gathering feedback from users in our alpha program. To all of those who have provided feedback: Thank you! It’s been incredibly insightful and we’re excited to now invite all users to try out themes.

How to enable a theme

Themes are available to all continuous release customers. Customers on release tracks will get access to theming as part of the next bundled release after that. 

To change your theme, select your profile icon in the top-right corner. In the dropdown, select the Theme menu and choose from one of four options:

1. Light: Our new default theme, very similar to the classic Confluence colors but with higher contrast for better accessibility.

2. Dark: Our new dark theme, which can reduce eyestrain and save battery power.

3. Match browser: This setting will follow whatever theming you’ve picked in your browser.

4. Original: The classic Confluence colors you are used to. We plan to remove this option in the near future once we are confident that the new Light theme works well.

We’ve also added the ability to temporarily switch your theme when using Presenter mode. This allows you to quickly switch between Dark and Light theme without having to exit Presenter mode. To go into Presenter mode, select it from the page menu in the top right or press r on your keyboard. After Presenter mode starts, click the Settings gear icon to reveal the theme switch. Toggling between themes in Presenter mode only changes your theme while presenting. Once you exit Presenter mode, your previously selected theme will be restored.

Once you’ve taken our new themes for a spin, we’d love to hear about your experience! To share feedback with us, click on the Let us know link in the theme dropdown and submit the feedback form.

What to expect in beta

Since we are in a beta phase right now, there are still a few Confluence experiences that aren’t fully compatible with themes. Most of these only affect Dark theme. Here are a few areas that we’re still working on:

1. Macros and colors in the legacy editor

Most of you are likely using our new cloud editor. However, for those who are still working with pages in the legacy editor or pages that have migrated from the legacy editor, you may notice that a few colors are not yet supported by Dark theme. This may mean that text or table cell colors are hard to read. If you experience this, you can switch to Light theme or edit the page to choose a similar color from our theming-compliant color picker. Rest assured that we are aware of this issue and already working on a fix.

2. Illustrations and icons

Most of our illustrations and icons have been updated with Dark and Light theme versions, but there are a few that we have not yet gotten to. If you spot one, please let us know.

3. Whiteboards

Whiteboards are currently available in beta and don’t yet support themes.

4. Marketplace apps

We’ve enabled theming for Connect and Forge Marketplace apps across all Confluence Cloud instances. Many Marketplace partners are already working on supporting theming for their apps and it’s been exciting to see their progress. If your Confluence site has marketplace apps installed, you will see the themed version of the app once the partner releases theming support.

If you are a Marketplace partner and want to get started with theming for your apps, please check out our guide for Connect and Forge and follow this post on our Developer Community site.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who has already provided feedback on our themes. We’d love to hear from all of you as we close the remaining gaps. For updates, follow along here or watch our CONF Cloud ticket.

[Andy Gladstone]

I started using the dark theme earlier this week in my home office - where I generally work in low light. I could not believe how much sharper the font and images looked. 

I also plan on experimenting with the Dark Theme in presenter mode - this may be a big improvement in large rooms where there is low light and some screen glare. I'll provide feedback once the experiment is executed.

[Jana_Kyselova]

Thank you very much for the Dark theme, I am using it, and love it. But we cannot set this for our Guest users. Could you please provide information how to get dark theme for them? Thank you. 

[Matt Reiner _K15t_]

Dark theme is AMAZING! Just had to sing about it!

🎙️Hello Confluence dark mode, my old friend.🎶

Spread the good news!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cjInw8eax9U

[Summer Hogan]

Thank you for bringing dark mode to Confluence! Now all I need is dark mode in the Jira Align and Atlassian Community and all my dark mode dreams will have come true! 

[Lendvai Márton]

Thank you for the dark mode in Confluence!

[Scott Superko]

I triggered the dark theme and I see a lot of content that has black text.  I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature enhancement, but it appears that the dark theme isn't recognizing black text and switching to a readable color

[Admin Jira]

Great

[mike.slosar]

@Scott Superko I have no reply option, so this is all i can do i guess.

I would imagine that on those pages someone has forcibly set the text color to something that isn't recognizing right.  It seems in dark mode the flipped the colors, so black is white, etc. All the light/darks seem flipped too. Dark Red shows as Light Red and things like that. 

[SAKTHIVEL NATARAJAN]

Great, I love it !!

[Lucas Côté]

Thank you! That was the only one (after Jira) that I was waiting for. 

[Alex Hoogendoorn]

YES it here :-D. Love it!
Cheers

[lee_knauer]

Dark mode is my jam. My eyes thank you!

[Bas]

Dark Mode or not, the utterly annoying emoji problem still continues to exist for us grown ups :
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-78858

Just closing the ticket with the request to finally deal with this utterly annoying issue after several years, doesn't make the issue go away for us.
Having everything with a colon converted to an emoji  while typing is annoying and having your code/SQL that you just pasted with dozens of emoji doesn't make anyone happy.

Seeing that every promotional email from Atlassian is now also littered with dozens of emoji, makes me wonder whether managers at Atlassian realize that the grown ups among us need to use your products for doing some serious work?

And oh the irony!
I would have littered this comment with emoji, weren't it for the fact that there are no emoji available for this comment section. =/
Do I need to put in a request for emoji support in this section?

[Tomas Rohrer]

This just in: Atlassian finally joins the Dark mode party for Confluence! It only took them a few years to catch up with the rest of the world. And don't worry, the bugs and issues are just a bonus feature! Shame on you...

[Manish Kumar]

Wonderful Theme.

[Samantha Abrams]

Many of our Confluence / knowledge base users are *super* excited about Dark Mode, but several colleagues have raised issues of accessibility in Dark Mode — namely, there seems to be several instances of black text on a black background that is difficult to change and makes the text impossible to read. I've also received feedback about color panels — while the red, yellow, and green stand out well in Light / Classic Mode, there is not enough contrast between the colors when in Dark Mode. Is there a way to follow up with someone at Confluence about this? We take accessibility very seriously within our organization and need our knowledge base to function well for *all* users, and I'd love to see if there's a way to work toward a solution for folks who use Confluence in both Light and Dark Mode!

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Thank you, team, for you efforts and work!

[Sairul Balqis Saiful Bazli]

I am super excited with this dark theme too. Used it instantly after I received the email. Sadly, some of the wordings are not readable while I am in the dark theme. I read the same feedback above. Hope it can be rectified because I like my Confluence looks in the dark. Kudos to everyone making this dark theme a 'thing'. :)

[Alex Hoogendoorn]

@Sairul Balqis Saiful Bazli, I noticed the same thing and thought I just update the text colour of the entire document. This did do the trick, however you'll need the new editor to ensure the font colour is light/dark mode compatible.

For example if you set the colour to black in light mode in the old editor, it will also be black in dark mode. When setting it in the new editor, black in light mode will be light grey in dark mode and vice versa.

I hope this helps a little.

Cheers

[Ivan Lima]

After dark mode, the presenter mode is already my favourite. Great job.

[Bas]

Can I have a theme called 'Doing work in a professional environment' that disables emoji and other distracting or other utterly contra-productive UI elements?

That would be great.