You spent an afternoon getting your editor, terminal, and tmux status bar to agree on a palette. Then you alt-tab to Slack and get hit with a stock aubergine sidebar that matches nothing. A Slack Nord theme — or Dracula, Catppuccin, Gruvbox, whatever your setup runs — fixes that in one paste. This is a gallery of Slack sidebar themes ported straight from the editor color schemes developers actually use, built from each palette's official hex values, with a ready-to-paste string for every one.
Why bother? Eye strain: a bright or clashing sidebar next to a dark editor is a brightness jump your pupils pay for on every glance. Context switching: when every window shares a palette, Slack stops feeling like a separate place you have to go to. And the flicker: bounce between a Gruvbox terminal and a stock-blue Slack forty times a day and that's forty tiny visual resets. Match them and it disappears.
Every string below uses the same eight comma-separated slots, in this order: column background, hover menu background, active item, active item text, hover item, text color, active presence, mention badge. If you want the full field-by-field breakdown, our decoder for Slack theme colors covers it; if you want palettes that aren't from an editor, the best Slack themes gallery has those. This post is the developer wing.
Nord Slack Theme
Nord is the arctic one: sixteen colors designed by Arctic Ice Studio around a "polar night" of blue-grays, a "frost" set of muted cyans and blues, a "snow storm" of near-whites, and an "aurora" of soft accents. Nothing in it is saturated, which is why ten-hour days on it feel restful rather than pretty.
Official values: polar night #2E3440 #3B4252 #434C5E #4C566A; frost #8FBCBB #88C0D0 #81A1C1 #5E81AC; snow storm #D8DEE9 #E5E9F0 #ECEFF4; aurora #BF616A #D08770 #EBCB8B #A3BE8C #B48EAD.
#2E3440,#3B4252,#88C0D0,#2E3440,#434C5E,#D8DEE9,#A3BE8C,#BF616A
Why these slots: the three darkest polar-night steps become background, hover menu, and hover item; frost's brightest cyan is the active channel with polar-night text inside it; aurora green marks presence and aurora red is the mention badge. Nord's "text" color is technically #D8DEE9, which is what's used here — swap in #ECEFF4 if channel names feel too soft.
Dracula Slack Theme
Dracula started as a Zeno Rocha side project and grew into one of the most-ported themes in existence — official spec, hundreds of app ports, and a fanbase that will notice if your pink is slightly off. The feel is dark purple-gray with candy-bright accents: it's the loud dark theme, the opposite of Nord's whisper.
Official values: background #282A36, current line #44475A, foreground #F8F8F2, comment #6272A4, cyan #8BE9FD, green #50FA7B, orange #FFB86C, pink #FF79C6, purple #BD93F9, red #FF5555, yellow #F1FA8C.
#282A36,#44475A,#BD93F9,#282A36,#44475A,#F8F8F2,#50FA7B,#FF79C6
Why these slots: background and current-line map one-to-one to column and hover; purple is the active channel because purple is Dracula's signature; green presence is the obvious choice, and pink beats red as the badge because pink is the second thing anyone recognizes about this theme. Prefer #FF5555 for the badge if you want mentions to feel like errors.
Catppuccin Slack Theme (Mocha and Latte)
Catppuccin is the newest palette here and the most pastel: four "flavors" from light (Latte) through Frappé and Macchiato to dark (Mocha), each with 26 named colors that are meant to stay soft even at full strength. It reads warmer and rounder than Dracula, and it took over the ricing subreddits on the strength of its ports.
Official Mocha values: base #1E1E2E, mantle #181825, surface0 #313244, text #CDD6F4, mauve #CBA6F7, pink #F5C2E7, green #A6E3A1, blue #89B4FA, peach #FAB387.
#1E1E2E,#181825,#CBA6F7,#1E1E2E,#313244,#CDD6F4,#A6E3A1,#FAB387
Why these slots: base is the column, mantle (the darker step meant for panels) is the hover menu, surface0 is the hover item; mauve is Catppuccin's flagship accent so it takes the active channel; green presence, peach badge. Swap #F5C2E7 in for the badge if you want the pink-forward look.
For a light version, Latte's published values map the same way — base #EFF1F5, mantle #E6E9EF, surface0 #CCD0DA, text #4C4F69, mauve #8839EF, green #40A02B, peach #FE640B:
#EFF1F5,#E6E9EF,#8839EF,#FFFFFF,#CCD0DA,#4C4F69,#40A02B,#FE640B
Gruvbox Slack Theme
Gruvbox is retro groove: Pavel Pertsev's Vim scheme with a warm, slightly desaturated palette that looks like a terminal on a CRT in a wood-paneled room. Where Nord is cold and Catppuccin is pastel, Gruvbox is earthy — browns, mustards, and an orange that somehow doesn't glare.
Official dark values: bg #282828, bg1 #3C3836, fg #EBDBB2, yellow #FABD2F, orange #FE8019, aqua #8EC07C, green #B8BB26, red #FB4934.
#282828,#3C3836,#FABD2F,#282828,#3C3836,#EBDBB2,#B8BB26,#FE8019
Why these slots: bg and bg1 do the background and both hover states; the active channel is Gruvbox's mustard yellow with dark text inside it, because yellow-on-brown is the whole Gruvbox mood; green presence, orange badge. Red #FB4934 is the alternative badge if orange sits too close to the yellow for your eye.
Tokyo Night Slack Theme
Tokyo Night is Enkia's VS Code theme inspired by the city's lights at night: a deep blue-black base with neon-ish blue, purple, and coral accents that stay cool rather than garish. It's the default "dark but not boring" pick for a lot of Neovim setups.
Official values: bg #1A1B26, bg highlight #292E42, fg #C0CAF5, blue #7AA2F7, purple #BB9AF7, green #9ECE6A, orange #FF9E64, red #F7768E.
#1A1B26,#292E42,#7AA2F7,#1A1B26,#292E42,#C0CAF5,#9ECE6A,#F7768E
Why these slots: the bg highlight color does double duty for hover menu and hover item; blue is the active channel because it's the theme's primary accent (purple #BB9AF7 works too if you want the sidebar to lean violet); green presence; the coral-red badge is the same color Tokyo Night uses for errors, so mentions will feel appropriately urgent.
Solarized Slack Theme (Dark and Light)
Solarized is the elder statesman: Ethan Schoonover designed it in 2011 with actual color-science constraints — fixed contrast relationships in CIELAB, a shared set of accents for both the dark and light variants — and it's been ported to essentially everything since. The feel is low-contrast teal-on-navy (dark) or ink-on-cream (light), and the two are designed to swap cleanly.
Official values: base03 #002B36, base02 #073642, base01 #586E75, base0 #839496, base1 #93A1A1, base2 #EEE8D5, base3 #FDF6E3; accents yellow #B58900, orange #CB4B16, blue #268BD2, cyan #2AA198, green #859900, magenta #D33682.
Solarized Dark:
#002B36,#073642,#268BD2,#FDF6E3,#073642,#93A1A1,#859900,#CB4B16
Solarized Light:
#FDF6E3,#EEE8D5,#268BD2,#FDF6E3,#EEE8D5,#586E75,#859900,#CB4B16
Why these slots: base03/base02 (dark) and base3/base2 (light) are mirror images by design, so the two strings share a shape with the backgrounds flipped. Blue, green, and orange are the shared active channel, presence dot, and badge — the accents that stay constant across both variants in the spec. Text follows the spec too: base1 on dark, base01 on light.
Monokai Slack Theme
Monokai is the palette that shipped as the Sublime Text default and then became the look of Sublime for a generation. Wimer Hazenberg's original is olive-black with hot pink, lime green, and orange: high-energy, high-saturation, unapologetically 2008. If your editor still runs it, you already know you like loud.
Official values: bg #272822, line #3E3D32, fg #F8F8F2, green #A6E22E, orange #FD971F, pink #F92672, purple #AE81FF, cyan #66D9EF, yellow #E6DB74.
#272822,#3E3D32,#F92672,#F8F8F2,#3E3D32,#F8F8F2,#A6E22E,#FD971F
Why these slots: the olive-black bg and line-highlight color handle the background and hovers; Monokai's keyword pink is the active channel with light text inside it; lime green presence; orange badge so mentions don't blend into the pink. If the pink active bar is too much, #66D9EF cyan is the calmer alternative.
Everforest Slack Theme
Everforest is a green-tinted, warm-neutral scheme by sainnhe that sits between Gruvbox and Nord: earthy like the former, soft like the latter, with a faint forest-green cast to every background. It's the least likely palette here to look "themed" to a passerby — it just looks like a nice dark app.
Official dark values: bg #2D353B, bg1 #343F44, fg #D3C6AA, green #A7C080, aqua #83C092, blue #7FBBB3, orange #E69875, red #E67E80.
#2D353B,#343F44,#A7C080,#2D353B,#343F44,#D3C6AA,#83C092,#E67E80
Why these slots: bg and bg1 are the background and hovers; the signature sage green is the active channel with dark text inside; aqua takes the presence dot so it doesn't vanish against the green bar; soft red is the badge, or #E69875 orange if red feels too alarmed for a theme this calm.
One Dark Slack Theme
One Dark is the Atom default that outlived Atom — VS Code's most-installed dark theme is a port of it, and its blue-purple-green accent set is what a huge share of developers now think of as simply "dark mode." Cool, neutral, easy to live in.
Official values: bg #282C34, gutter #21252B, fg #ABB2BF, blue #61AFEF, purple #C678DD, green #98C379, red #E06C75, yellow #E5C07B.
#282C34,#21252B,#61AFEF,#282C34,#3E4451,#ABB2BF,#98C379,#E06C75
Why these slots: bg is the column, the darker gutter color is the hover menu, and the hover item uses One Dark's selection gray (#3E4451, the one shade here not in the list above, taken from the original Atom syntax theme); function-blue is the active channel, green presence, red badge. Purple #C678DD as the active item gives it more of an Atom-era feel.
How to Apply Any of These
Two ways. Open Slack, hit Ctrl+, (or Cmd+,), go to Appearance, expand Custom theme, and paste — it applies live, no save button. Or post the string as a message in any channel or DM (send it to yourself if you're shy): Slack detects the format and attaches a Switch sidebar theme button, and anyone else in that channel gets the same button. That second method is how a team ends up on the same palette by Friday. The full walkthrough, including the desktop-versus-browser quirks and a troubleshooting checklist, is in how to change your Slack theme.
Before you paste: themes are personal and per-workspace, so nobody else sees yours. Custom strings color the sidebar only — flip on dark mode in the same Appearance panel, or a Mocha sidebar next to a white message pane will make you sad. Mobile ignores custom themes entirely. And if you were hoping for something more sweeping, our post on Slack skins explains why full reskins don't exist and what the realistic options are.
Once the colors are sorted, custom sidebar sections and the rest of the keyboard-first moves are in our Slack tips and tricks.
Roll Your Own Port in Five Minutes
Any editor scheme not on this list ports the same way. Pull the palette table from its repo and fill the slots with one consistent rule: editor background → column background; the next-darker surface (mantle, gutter, bg0) → hover menu; the signature keyword accent → active item, with the background color as the active item text; line-highlight or selection → hover item; foreground → text; green (or aqua, if the active item is already green) → presence; error red or orange → mention badge. Paste, squint at a channel name, and if it takes effort to read, move the text color one step brighter. That's how every string above was built.
A Matching Palette Only Fixes the Frame
Here's the honest limit. A Nord sidebar makes Slack blend into your setup — a real, daily, small improvement. But the sidebar is a frame, and what's inside it is whatever your team puts there. If the most-read channel is #alerts, a beautiful palette just means the pager looks nicer.
The channel that makes a sidebar worth glancing at is a #wins (or #props, or #kudos) where teammates recognize each other's work in public — the migration that landed clean, the on-call shift someone covered, the PR review that caught the bug. Propsly (yes, it's ours) runs that channel: anyone types /props @maria +20 for shipping the migration #teamwork, every give posts to the feed, and it's free for unlimited users with 200 props per person a month. There's a monthly leaderboard and giving streaks celebrated at 4, 8, 12, 26, and 52 weeks, if you want the gamified side of recognition — with the caveats we wrote about there.
So: pick your palette, paste it, turn on dark mode, and enjoy the absence of flicker. Then give the frame something worth framing.