Themes & appearance
tela ships three themes — Light, Dark and Warm (a low-contrast cream palette) — plus Follow system, which tracks your operating system's light/dark preference and switches with it.
The theme control sits in the top-right of the app header, and inside Display in the distraction-free reader. It's the same control everywhere: the leftmost button is Follow system, then the three themes.
Follow system
Turn it on and tela repaints the moment your OS switches between light and dark — at sunset, on a schedule, or when you flip it by hand. No reload, and nothing to configure.
New accounts start on Follow system. If you've picked a theme before, tela keeps honouring that pick.
In the app header the control rests as a single button showing the theme you're in; hover it (or tap it on a touch screen) and the full row opens beneath. In the reader's Display menu the row is always open, since that panel is open already.
Which theme does it use?
Two of the three themes are light ones, so "follow system" has to know which one you meant. It uses the theme you picked last on each side.
- Pick Warm, then turn on Follow system → you get Warm in daylight hours and Dark after dark.
- Pick Light instead → Light in the day, Dark at night.
While Follow system is on, the two themes it alternates between are enclosed by a coloured band in the control, and the one that's live right now is coloured too. Hovering the theme button spells it out — "Warm when light, Dark when dark. Currently Warm."
To change the pairing, just pick the theme you want for that side; the next time Follow system is on, that's the one it uses.
[!NOTE] Picking a theme by hand turns Follow system off — you've pinned that theme until you turn it back on.
Shortcuts
| How | What it does |
|---|---|
t |
Cycles Light → Dark → Warm → Follow system |
| Command palette → Follow system theme | Turns on Follow system directly |
| Command palette → Toggle theme | Same cycle as t |
Where the theme applies
Your theme is stored in your browser, so it follows you across every space and page on that device — and it applies to shared and public pages you visit too, even when you're signed out. Readers of a page you publish see it in their theme, not yours.
Exporting a page to PDF uses the theme you're viewing in, so a Dark-theme export comes out dark.
Related: [[Keyboard shortcuts]] · [[Publishing & public URLs]]