Themes & Backgrounds
PocketCmd’s look has two independent parts. The app theme colors the interface: bars, menus, sheets and the home screen. The terminal theme sets the colors inside the terminal: background, foreground, cursor, selection and the 16 ANSI colors. Animated backgrounds, fonts and tmux themes are set separately again.
On Free you get the PocketCmd and PocketCmd Light terminal themes, the PocketCmd and PocketCmd Light tmux themes, the Sand Dunes background (or none) and the Neutral Dark app theme. Everything else requires PocketCmd Pro, including custom fonts and the theme editors. If Pro ends, PocketCmd switches each Pro look back to a free one and restores your choice when you upgrade again.
App theme and appearance
Section titled “App theme and appearance”Settings › Appearance:
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Theme | Neutral Dark, Ocean Blue, Forest Green, Sunset Orange, Royal Purple, Crimson Red, Teal, Amber Gold, Deep Indigo, Pink Blossom, Slate Gray | Neutral Dark |
| Appearance | Dark, Light, System | System (follows the device’s light/dark setting) |
| Animated Background | 18 animations, or None | Sand Dunes |
| Server List Opacity | How opaque the home screen’s panels are over the background | 55% |
| App Font | System, JetBrains Mono or a font you upload | System |
The app theme and the light/dark choice sync to your other devices when you use sync.
Animated backgrounds
Section titled “Animated backgrounds”The animations draw behind the home screen, and on desktop behind the main window. The 18 options are Sand Dunes, Gradient Wave, Particles, Plasma Field, Lava Blobs, Spiral Galaxy, Snowfall, Boid Swarm, Conway Life, Pixel Rain, Bezier Flow, Sound Bars, Fractal Tree, Bouncing Balls, Gravity Wells, Sunburst Rays, Wormhole and Wireframe Sphere. Choose None for a plain background and less battery use.
Terminal settings
Section titled “Terminal settings”Settings › Terminal:
| Setting | Range | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Font Size | 1–24 | 10 |
| Scrollback Lines | 1,000–50,000 | 10,000 |
| Apply Terminal Theme | On or off | Off |
| Bold Text Uses Bright Colors | On or off | On |
| Terminal Theme | Opens Terminal Appearance | PocketCmd |
With Apply Terminal Theme off, the terminal uses the plain xterm palette, which is what remote programs expect when nothing else is configured. Turn it on to apply the theme chosen under Terminal Theme.
Bold Text Uses Bright Colors follows xterm, which shows bold text in ANSI colors 0–7 using their bright variants. Turn it off to match kitty, iTerm2 and GNOME Terminal.
Terminal themes
Section titled “Terminal themes”Settings › Terminal › Terminal Theme opens Terminal Appearance, with 39 built-in themes filtered by Dark, Light, Retro and Custom:
- Dark (26): PocketCmd, Catppuccin Mocha, Catppuccin Frappe, Catppuccin Macchiato, Dracula, Nord, One Dark, Gruvbox Dark, Tokyo Night, Tokyo Night Storm, GitHub Dark, Monokai Pro, Tomorrow Night, Tomorrow Night Bright, Ayu Dark, Ayu Mirage, Kanagawa, Rose Pine, Rose Pine Moon, Everforest Dark, Nightfox, Carbonfox, Material Dark, Synthwave ’84, Cyberpunk, Solarized Dark.
- Light (9): PocketCmd Light, Catppuccin Latte, Solarized Light, Gruvbox Light, Ayu Light, Rose Pine Dawn, Everforest Light, GitHub Light, Material Light.
- Retro (4): Amber on Black, Green on Black, IBM 3270, Commodore 64.
PocketCmd, the default, is built from the app’s own Neutral Dark colors so the terminal matches the rest of the interface. PocketCmd Light does the same with the app’s light colors, with accents darkened to stay readable on the light background. These two are the terminal themes available on Free.
Editing a palette
Section titled “Editing a palette”Under Colors, Terminal Appearance edits Background, Foreground, Cursor, Selection and the ANSI palette (normal and bright), with a live preview. Start from any built-in theme, adjust it and tap Save theme. When you’re editing a custom theme, Replace “name” overwrites it; turn that off to save a copy instead. Custom themes can be renamed and deleted; sessions using a deleted theme fall back to the default palette.
The theme editor requires Pro.
Terminal font
Section titled “Terminal font”Font Family in Terminal Appearance offers JetBrains Mono, which ships with the app, plus any fonts you upload. Upload .ttf/.otf adds a font; it then appears in the terminal and app font pickers. Removing an uploaded font switches anything that used it back to the default. Uploading fonts requires Pro.
tmux themes
Section titled “tmux themes”Settings › tmux › Apply tmux Theme styles the tmux status bar in your sessions. It’s off by default. tmux Theme offers 13 presets and an editor. The PocketCmd and PocketCmd Light presets are available on Free; the other presets and the editor require Pro. See tmux Integration.
24-bit color
Section titled “24-bit color”The terminal renders 24-bit color exactly. Whether a remote program sends 24-bit color depends on what the server is told. With Settings › Connection › Advertise Truecolor on (the default), PocketCmd sets COLORTERM=truecolor for the session, so programs like neovim, tmux, delta, bat and lazygit use full color instead of the 256-color palette.
Many SSH servers refuse environment variables the client sends. If colors still look flat, add this to the server’s startup command (a Pro feature, see Connecting) or to your shell profile on the server:
export COLORTERM=truecolorPocketCmd also answers when a program asks the terminal for its current background color. neovim, delta, bat and fzf use that answer to pick a light or dark palette.