How to Change Discord Sidebar Color: Themes, Settings, and Customization Options
Discord's sidebar is one of the most visible parts of the interface — it's where your server list, DMs, and channel navigation live. Naturally, many users want to adjust its color. The answer to how (and whether) you can do this depends heavily on which Discord client you're using, whether you're willing to use third-party tools, and how much customization you actually want.
What Discord Offers Natively
Out of the box, Discord gives you two built-in appearance options: Light mode and Dark mode. These control the overall color scheme of the entire interface, including the sidebar. Dark mode renders the sidebar in deep charcoal tones; Light mode shifts it to softer grays and whites.
Beyond that, Discord introduced theme customization through its Nitro subscription. Nitro subscribers can access a range of built-in themes that adjust accent colors and some interface hues. However, even with Nitro, the changes are fairly limited — you're working within Discord's pre-approved palette, and the sidebar background itself isn't fully customizable through official means.
To adjust these native settings:
- Open Discord and click the gear icon (User Settings) at the bottom left
- Navigate to Appearance
- Toggle between Dark and Light, or select a theme if you have Nitro access
That's the ceiling for official, built-in customization.
Going Further: Client Mods and Custom CSS 🎨
For users who want real sidebar color control — choosing specific hex values, gradients, or entirely custom palettes — the most common path is using a Discord client modification, often called a client mod.
The most widely used options in this space include BetterDiscord, Vencord, and Replugged. These tools inject custom CSS into the Discord desktop client, which means you can target specific UI elements — including the sidebar — and apply whatever colors you want.
With a client mod and custom CSS, a basic sidebar color change might look something like:
.sidebar_* { background-color: #1a1a2e; } The exact class names vary depending on Discord's current build, since Discord occasionally updates its internal CSS class naming, which can break themes temporarily until they're updated.
Important to understand about client mods:
- They are not officially supported by Discord
- Discord's Terms of Service technically prohibit client modifications, though enforcement against individual users has historically been inconsistent
- Client mods work only on the desktop app — not on mobile or in the browser
- They require a modest level of technical comfort: installing software, finding or writing CSS, and troubleshooting when Discord updates break things
Pre-Made Themes vs. Writing Your Own CSS
If you go the client mod route, you don't necessarily need to write CSS from scratch. Large libraries of community-made Discord themes exist — many of which include cohesive color schemes that restyle the sidebar along with the rest of the interface.
| Approach | Skill Level | Flexibility | Maintenance Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Native Dark/Light mode | None | Very limited | None |
| Nitro themes | None | Limited | None |
| Pre-made client mod theme | Low | Moderate | Occasional updates |
| Custom CSS via client mod | Moderate–High | Full control | Regular upkeep |
Pre-made themes are the middle ground: you get a dramatically different look without needing to understand CSS, but you're constrained to what the theme's creator designed. Custom CSS gives you total control but requires you to maintain it as Discord's class names shift.
Mobile and Browser Limitations
It's worth being direct here: if you're on iOS, Android, or using Discord in a web browser, your options shrink considerably.
Mobile Discord apps don't support client mods. There's no officially supported way to change the sidebar color on mobile beyond toggling between Light and Dark mode. Some workarounds exist using accessibility features (like display color filters at the OS level), but these affect your entire screen, not just Discord.
On the browser version of Discord, client mods also don't apply, though browser extensions that inject CSS (like Stylus) can theoretically be used to customize Discord's appearance — with similar caveats around class name instability.
What "Sidebar" Actually Includes
It's useful to clarify what components make up Discord's sidebar, since different users mean different things:
- Server list panel — the far-left column with server icons
- Channel list panel — the second column showing channels within a server
- DM list — the panel visible when you're in direct messages
These panels can often be styled independently using CSS. A theme might make the server list one color and the channel list another, or apply a gradient across both. Native settings treat them as a unified visual block.
The Variables That Shape Your Options 🖥️
Your realistic customization range depends on a few factors that only you know:
- Which platform you're on — desktop, mobile, or browser each have different ceilings
- Whether you have Nitro — unlocks a small set of additional official themes
- Your comfort with technical tools — installing client mods and troubleshooting CSS requires some patience
- Your tolerance for ToS risk — client mods exist in a gray area
- How stable you need the look to be — custom themes require maintenance after Discord updates
Someone running Discord on desktop, comfortable with light software installs, and wanting a specific aesthetic can get very close to full sidebar color control. Someone on an iPhone using the official app is working within a much narrower window — essentially just Light vs. Dark.
The right path forward looks different depending on which of those descriptions fits your situation.