How to set up per-project IDE color in IntelliJ IDEs

Nadia Tarashkevich

October 26, 2026 15:53 Updated

Question

How to make IDE look different when coding in different projects?

Answer

Use project colors

Project color allows customizing top border bar. Right-click on the main toolbar, and select "Change Project Color"

Use custom icons:

Right-click on the main toolbar, and select "Set custom project icon" Note: you may use AI assistant to generate an SVG for your project icon

Use custom background image

To change the background image, go to "Settings | Appearance & Behavior | Appearance" and click "Background image" Set "this project only" in Background image settings:

Additional information

Setting the entire IDE theme or color scheme on per-project basis is not supported by IntelliJ IDEs. Upvote the feature request IDE Appearance : Customize per project

More options for project colors:

Right-click on the top bar, select "Change project color" and select a color

If you'd like a color to be brighter, press Shift+Shift, then type "Registry" to open Registry. Change the value of the key "ide.colorful.toolbar.gradient.saturation" to "1"

If you'd like the color to be brighter than that, press Shift+Shift, then type "Registry" to open Registry and turn on "idea.islands.color.gradient.enabled"