# adi1090x/polybar-themes: a theme collection for Polybar, and what installing it actually changes

> The repository ships two style families, a setup script and a launcher that writes into ~/.config/polybar. It suits people who already run Polybar and want a starting point, not people who want a packaged status bar.

**adi1090x/polybar-themes** — A huge collection of polybar themes with different styles, colors and variants.

- Repository: https://github.com/adi1090x/polybar-themes
- Stars: 6,252 · Forks: 424
- Language: Shell
- License: GPL-3.0
- Published: 2026-09-22 · Updated: 2026-09-22 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/adi1090x-polybar-themes

## What adi1090x/polybar-themes adds to a plain Polybar install

Polybar itself is a status bar program: the README lists what it can display, from systray icons and window titles to ALSA volume, battery, backlight and network details. What it does not ship with is a finished look. You get modules and a config format, and the arrangement of those modules into something you would keep on screen is your problem. This repository is that arrangement, twelve times over, plus the scripts the arrangements call.

The audience is narrow and specific. You already run a window manager such as i3, bspwm or Openbox, you have Polybar installed, and you want a bar that looks deliberate within an afternoon rather than a week. The dependency list makes the boundary clear: Rofi for the app launcher, network, power and style menus, pywal for wallpaper-derived colors, calc for the random color scripts, networkmanager_dmenu for the network modules. If you do not use those programs, parts of the themes will reference things that are not there.

It is not a distribution package and not a daemon. Nothing here replaces Polybar; it configures it. That distinction matters when you read complaints about the project, because most of what can go wrong is a mismatch between what a theme assumes is installed and what your machine actually has.

## How the repository is laid out and how a theme reaches your config directory

The top level holds two style directories, simple/ and bitmap/, alongside fonts/, wallpapers/, setup.sh, LICENSE and README.md. The README's setup prompt offers exactly those two choices: Simple and Bitmap. So the twelve theme names in the badges are organized under two families rather than being twelve independent directories at the root.

The flow is one-directional. setup.sh asks which style you want, installs the fonts, and copies the theme files into ~/.config/polybar. The README's own transcript shows the sequence: installing fonts, creating a backup of your polybar configs, then a success message. From that point the repository clone is no longer the thing you edit. Your live configuration lives in ~/.config/polybar, and the launch script, the theme directories and the per-theme scripts are all read from there.

That is why the README calls the themes an ecosystem and warns you to know what you are doing before modifying anything. A theme is not a single file. The launcher, the module definitions and the helper scripts under each theme's scripts directory refer to each other, so renaming a directory or moving a script breaks the chain in ways that are not obvious from the bar's appearance.

## Installing adi1090x/polybar-themes and launching a first theme

The README gives a shallow clone, then makes the setup script executable and runs it. The clone is depth 1, which is enough because the theme files are in the repository itself.

```bash
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/adi1090x/polybar-themes.git
cd polybar-themes
chmod +x setup.sh
./setup.sh
```

Running setup.sh presents a numbered style menu. The README shows two entries, Simple and Bitmap, and the transcript shows option 1 being selected. After that it installs fonts, backs up your existing polybar configs and reports success. Read the backup step carefully: this is the moment your previous configuration stops being the active one.

Launching is separate from installing. The launcher lives at ~/.config/polybar/launch.sh and takes a theme name after --theme. The README prints the available names when you run it with no argument, and shows this example.

```bash
bash ~/.config/polybar/launch.sh --hack
```

The names listed in the README are --blocks, --colorblocks, --cuts, --docky, --forest, --grayblocks, --hack, --material, --panels, --pwidgets, --shades and --shapes. To make the bar start with your session, the README adds the same command to the window manager's autostart file, and gives Openbox as the example.

```bash
## Launch Polybar
bash ~/.config/polybar/launch.sh --cuts
```

The two color scripts sit inside each theme, not at the top level. For the material theme the README gives these paths, one taking a wallpaper or a wallpaper directory and one generating random colors.

```bash
bash ~/.config/polybar/material/scripts/pywal.sh /path/to/wallpaper
bash ~/.config/polybar/material/scripts/random.sh
```

Putting the pywal call before the launch command in the autostart file is what the README suggests if you want the colors to follow your wallpaper at every login.

## The backup overwrite and the dependency assumptions are the real costs

setup.sh creates a backup of your polybar configs and then installs over them. The README documents the backup happening; it does not document a restore command, a backup location, or an uninstall path. If you have spent time on a hand-written Polybar configuration and run setup.sh without knowing where that backup went, you are relying on your own ability to find it. That is the single largest risk in the project and it is not addressed in the installation section.

The second cost is the dependency list. Rofi, pywal, calc and networkmanager_dmenu are named as prerequisites, and the README does not say which modules degrade gracefully when one is missing. A theme whose network module expects networkmanager_dmenu will not quietly fall back to something else; you find out by looking at the bar or the output. The same applies to fonts. The README lists Iosevka Nerd Font, Fantasque Sans Mono, Noto Sans, Droid Sans and Terminus as text fonts, and Iosevka Nerd Font, Icomoon Feather, Material Icons and Waffle (Siji) as icon fonts. Missing icon fonts are the classic failure here: the bar renders, but glyph slots show as empty boxes.

Third, the ecosystem warning is not decorative. Because the scripts and modules are wired together, the themes are a poor fit if your plan is to keep the layout and change one thing. And because Polybar is an X11 status bar, this is the wrong tool on a Wayland compositor, where the README offers nothing.

## How this differs from hand-writing a Polybar config or using a package

The alternative most people actually weigh is writing the configuration themselves against the Polybar documentation. The difference is not quality, it is where the work sits. A hand-written config is one file you understand completely, with modules you added because you wanted them and no scripts you did not read. It takes longer to reach something that looks finished, and it never breaks because a helper script expected a program you do not have. adi1090x/polybar-themes inverts that: you get a finished-looking bar quickly, and you inherit a set of assumptions about Rofi, pywal, calc, networkmanager_dmenu and four icon fonts.

A second alternative is whatever your distribution packages. A packaged theme arrives through the same package manager as Polybar, so removal is a package operation rather than a manual cleanup of ~/.config/polybar. This repository installs by copying into your home directory, which means the package manager has no record of it and no way to take it back out. If reversibility matters more to you than variety, the packaged route is the safer one, and the README does not claim otherwise.

The honest comparison is variety against control. Twelve named themes across two style families is a lot of surface to browse, and the bitmap family in particular is not something most people would build from scratch. The price is that you are editing someone else's interconnected setup rather than your own file.

## Maintenance, licence and what an upgrade looks like

The repository is not archived and the last push was on 2026-08-18, roughly a month before this writing. There are no releases in the repository, so there is no version number to pin and no changelog to read before updating. In practice an upgrade is the same shallow clone and the same setup.sh run, which means the same overwrite of ~/.config/polybar and the same backup step. Because the README does not describe a restore path, an upgrade carries the same risk as a first install: whatever you changed in your live configuration is replaced unless you kept a copy.

The licence is GPL-3.0, stated in the repository and shown as a badge in the README. For a desktop theme collection the practical effect is limited, but the terms are copyleft: if you redistribute modified versions, the licence conditions apply to what you distribute. Keeping a customized theme to yourself on your own machine is not redistribution. If you plan to publish a fork or bundle these files into something you ship, read the GPL-3.0 text in the LICENSE file and, where the stakes justify it, take proper advice. Nothing here is legal advice.

There is also a sponsorship link in the README pointing at the author's GitHub sponsors page, which is the only funding mechanism mentioned. No support channel, issue triage policy or compatibility matrix is described in the README.

## Conclusion

Adopt it if you already run Polybar on i3, bspwm or Openbox and want a working bar to edit, and if you accept that setup.sh backs up and then replaces your existing ~/.config/polybar. Skip it if you want a self-contained package, a bar for a Wayland compositor, or a configuration you never intend to read; the README's own note that the themes are an ecosystem is the warning. Verify first that Polybar, Rofi, pywal, calc and networkmanager_dmenu are installed, that the fonts it lists are present, and that you can find the backup setup.sh creates, because the README does not document a rollback command.

## FAQ

### What does adi1090x/polybar-themes install, and where does it put the files?

The setup.sh script installs the selected style's fonts and copies the theme files into ~/.config/polybar, after creating a backup of your existing polybar configs. From then on the launcher and the per-theme scripts are read from that directory rather than from the cloned repository.

### How do I launch a theme after installing adi1090x/polybar-themes?

Run bash ~/.config/polybar/launch.sh with a theme name, for example --hack. Running the script without an argument prints the available theme names, which include --blocks, --colorblocks, --cuts, --docky, --forest, --grayblocks, --hack, --material, --panels, --pwidgets, --shades and --shapes.

### What programs do I need before using adi1090x/polybar-themes?

The README lists Polybar itself, Rofi for the app launcher and the network, power and style menus, pywal for pywal support, calc for random colors, and networkmanager_dmenu for the network modules. It also lists the text and icon fonts the themes use, including Iosevka Nerd Font, Material Icons and Waffle (Siji).

### How do I make the bar use colors from my wallpaper in adi1090x/polybar-themes?

Each theme carries its own scripts directory. For the material theme the README gives bash ~/.config/polybar/material/scripts/pywal.sh /path/to/wallpaper, and the same directory holds random.sh for random colors. The README suggests putting the pywal call before the launch command in your window manager's autostart file.

### What is the default configuration file in Polybar?

The README does not name a default Polybar configuration file. What it does say is that setup.sh copies the themes into ~/.config/polybar and that the launcher lives at ~/.config/polybar/launch.sh, which is the path the README works with throughout.

### Can I undo the installation of adi1090x/polybar-themes?

The README states that setup.sh creates a backup of your polybar configs, but it does not document where that backup is kept or give a restore command. Since the files are copied into ~/.config/polybar rather than installed by a package manager, removal is a manual operation.

## Sources

- [adi1090x/polybar-themes on GitHub](https://github.com/adi1090x/polybar-themes)
- [Issues](https://github.com/adi1090x/polybar-themes/issues)
- [License: GPL-3.0](https://github.com/adi1090x/polybar-themes/blob/master/LICENSE)
- [README](https://github.com/adi1090x/polybar-themes/blob/master/README.md)

---

Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/adi1090x-polybar-themes