Tools
Theme Studio
Make your own RetroBar theme without writing XAML: pick a built-in theme to start from, change its colours, font and height, and download a theme file. The file only holds your changes and inherits everything else from the built-in theme, using the file path that worked in our Windows tests. Everything happens in your browser.
On this page 3 sections
The preview is drawn by your browser from the theme's values; RetroBar draws the real thing with Windows' fonts and the theme's images.
Tested on Windows
We exported three themes from this page with the default “installed in the default folder” option, saved them in the custom themes folder as the steps below say, and picked each one in RetroBar on every test machine (2026-10-31).
| Theme | Windows 11 (Arm64) | Windows Server 2025 | Windows Server 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio Green Vista (from Windows Vista Aero) | Loaded, no errors | Loaded, no errors | Loaded, no errors |
| Studio Pink 98 (from Windows 95-98) | Loaded, no errors | Loaded, no errors | Loaded, no errors |
| Studio Red XP (from Windows XP Blue) | Loaded, no errors | Loaded, no errors | Loaded, no errors |
Use your theme
Save the file
Put the downloaded
.xamlfile in%LOCALAPPDATA%\RetroBar\Themes(RetroBar Properties › Advanced › Open custom themes folder opens it).Pick it
RetroBar Properties › Taskbar › Theme: your theme's name. It appears in the list as soon as the file is in the folder.
Change it again
Come back here (the studio remembers your last theme in this browser), adjust, download again over the old file, then pick another theme and yours again in Properties to reload it.
How it works
- Only keys the starting theme uses are offered, so every change has something to apply to. The classic themes, for example, draw the whole bar with “Button face”; the XP and Vista themes have separate taskbar and button backgrounds.
- Your file inherits the starting theme with
../../Programs/RetroBar/Themes/…. In our tests a theme in the custom themes folder could not inherit a built-in theme by file name alone, but this relative path worked on Windows 11 and Server 2025 and 2022 (test I). - Gradients become plain colours: where the starting theme uses a gradient (the XP taskbar, for example), the colour you choose replaces it with a solid colour.
- Height sets both
TaskbarHeightandTaskbarRowHeight, as the built-in themes do.
For changes beyond these, edit the file by hand; every key is listed in the theme key reference.
Keep going
Found something out of date or wrong? Tell us at hello@retrobar.dev and we will fix it.