Make Konsole follow Plasma's light/dark color scheme

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Make Konsole switch its windows between a light and a dark profile whenever Plasma's color scheme changes, open windows included, using the profile sync that Konsole 26.08 ships switched off.

Tested on: Fedora 44 desktop, KDE Plasma 6.7.5 on X11, Konsole 26.08.1, kf6-kconfig 6.31.0, Qt 6.11.2 (2026-10-25).
Not verified: Plasma's own scheduled switch (AutomaticLookAndFeel) driving Konsole; I only watched scheme changes I triggered with step 5's commands. A new window opened while Plasma is light, and new tabs: the light-mode windows I tested that day all predate the light profile (Field notes). Starting the test in light mode. The settings-dialog route (Notes). A bundled light scheme such as SolarizedLight; I used my own. Whether a Konsole process that was already running picks up step 3. Wayland, other distributions, Konsole 26.08.0. The rollback on the live desktop (run on copies of the files only).
Needs: Konsole 26.08.0 or newer; a Plasma 6 session; kwriteconfig6 and kreadconfig6 (Fedora package kf6-kconfig); plasma-apply-colorscheme (Fedora package plasma-workspace) for the test; a dark Konsole profile whose file has a ColorScheme= line; a light Konsole color scheme. Optional: strings (binutils) to list Konsole's bundled schemes; xdotool and ImageMagick to screenshot the test window.
Time: 15 min.
Risk: low. The setup is per user: konsolerc gains one group of three keys and one profile file is added. With the sync on, Konsole puts the light or dark profile on every tab of that Konsole process whenever a window opens and at each switch (step 3). The test in step 5 changes Plasma's color scheme for the whole session and leaves an extra ColorScheme= line in ~/.config/kdeglobals; step 1 copies that file and step 6 puts it back. Plasma also rewrote its GTK and Qt theme files under ~/.config/ during my round trip (gtk-3.0/, gtk-4.0/, gtkrc, gtkrc-2.0, xsettingsd/, dconf/user, Trolltech.conf, all written at the second command); I didn't compare them before and after. Undo: delete the three keys and move the light profile out (Undo / rollback).

Before you start#

Konsole is 26.08.0 or newer. That is the first stable release with the setting.
```
$ rpm -q konsole
konsole-26.08.1-1.fc44.x86_64
```
Expected: 26.08.0 or later. On other distributions, ask the package manager.
The sync is still off, and you know which profile Konsole uses now:
```
$ kreadconfig6 --file konsolerc --group LightDarkTheme --key SyncProfileWithSystemTheme

$ kreadconfig6 --file konsolerc --group 'Desktop Entry' --key DefaultProfile
user-default.profile
$ kreadconfig6 --file kdeglobals --group KDE --key AutomaticLookAndFeel
true
```
Expected: an empty line for SyncProfileWithSystemTheme (unset, and off by default). DefaultProfile is the profile file new windows get today; mine is the dark one. AutomaticLookAndFeel is Plasma's own automatic light/dark switching. It was on here; Konsole reacts only to the color scheme, so the manual works without it by the source (not tried with it off).
Your dark profile has a ColorScheme= line, and you have a light scheme:
```
$ cd ~/.local/share/konsole
$ grep -H -e '^Name=' -e '^ColorScheme=' *.profile
user-default.profile:ColorScheme=islands-dark
user-default.profile:Name=user-default
$ ls -1 *.colorscheme
islands-dark.colorscheme
islands-light.colorscheme
```
Expected: the dark profile with its Name= and ColorScheme=. Step 2 assumes the file is named after the profile (<Name>.profile), as mine is. A scheme's name is its .colorscheme file name without the extension. A profile without a ColorScheme= line is not covered here.
If you have no light scheme of your own: Konsole 26.08.1 builds its bundled schemes into its library (in the Fedora package konsole-part), and this lists them:
```
$ strings -e b /usr/lib64/libkonsoleprivate.so.* | grep '\.colorscheme$'
*.colorscheme
RedOnBlack.colorscheme
BlueOnBlack.colorscheme
Breeze.colorscheme
GreenOnBlack.colorscheme
Solarized.colorscheme
SolarizedLight.colorscheme
BlackOnWhite.colorscheme
Campbell.colorscheme
DarkPastels.colorscheme
Linux.colorscheme
BlackOnLightYellow.colorscheme
WhiteOnBlack.colorscheme
BlackOnRandomLight.colorscheme
```
Expected: the bundled scheme names. The first line, *.colorscheme, is a file-name filter from Konsole's code, not a scheme. Going by their names, the light ones are SolarizedLight, BlackOnWhite, BlackOnLightYellow and BlackOnRandomLight. Konsole looks for <name>.colorscheme under ~/.local/share/konsole/ and the system data directories first, then in this bundle (source: ColorSchemeManager.cpp). Mine is islands-light, made from the light variant of my editor theme (Field notes); I haven't put a bundled one in a profile.
Variables instead of placeholders: step 2 sets DARK (your dark profile's Name=), LIGHT (a name for the new light profile) and LIGHT_SCHEME (the light scheme's name). Steps 2 and 3, Verify and the undo use them; in a new shell, set them again. Step 5's screenshot method names <PID>, <WINDOW_ID> and <FILE>.

Steps#

Back up konsolerc, kdeglobals and your profiles.

$ mkdir -p ~/konsole-backup
$ cp -p ~/.config/konsolerc ~/.config/kdeglobals ~/.local/share/konsole/*.profile ~/konsole-backup/
$ ls -1 ~/konsole-backup
kdeglobals
konsolerc
user-default.profile

Expected: the two config files and every .profile file. kdeglobals is in the list because step 5 writes to it.

Make a light twin of the dark profile. Put your names in the second line (mine are shown), then copy the dark profile under the new name with the light scheme:

$ cd ~/.local/share/konsole
$ DARK=user-default LIGHT=user-light LIGHT_SCHEME=islands-light
$ sed -e "s/^Name=.*/Name=$LIGHT/" -e "s/^ColorScheme=.*/ColorScheme=$LIGHT_SCHEME/" "$DARK.profile" > "$LIGHT.profile"
$ diff "$DARK.profile" "$LIGHT.profile"
2c2
< ColorScheme=islands-dark
---
> ColorScheme=islands-light
7c7
< Name=user-default
---
> Name=user-light

Expected: exactly two lines differ, ColorScheme= and Name=. If diff shows only the Name= line, both profiles use the same scheme: Failure modes, row 2.

Turn on the sync and name the two profiles.
```
$ kwriteconfig6 --file konsolerc --group LightDarkTheme --key SyncProfileWithSystemTheme true
$ kwriteconfig6 --file konsolerc --group LightDarkTheme --key LightThemeProfile "$LIGHT"
$ kwriteconfig6 --file konsolerc --group LightDarkTheme --key DarkThemeProfile "$DARK"
$ kreadconfig6 --file konsolerc --group LightDarkTheme --key SyncProfileWithSystemTheme
true
$ kreadconfig6 --file konsolerc --group LightDarkTheme --key LightThemeProfile
user-light
$ kreadconfig6 --file konsolerc --group LightDarkTheme --key DarkThemeProfile
user-default
```
Expected: true, then the light and the dark name, spelled exactly as the profiles' Name= lines. Konsole looks the profiles up by that name; a name that matches no profile gets Konsole's built-in profile instead, without a message (source: ProfileManager.cpp; not tried).

NoteEvery tab gets the pair

Whenever a window opens and on each switch, Konsole sets the light or the dark profile on every session of that Konsole process, so a tab you opened with another profile changes to the pair too (source: applyThemeProfile() in MainWindow.cpp; not tried).
Open a test window in a new Konsole process.
```
konsole --separate &
```
Don't pass --profile: the sync has to choose the profile. --separate starts a new process, which reads konsolerc when it starts, even where Konsole is set to run all windows in one process (source: main.cpp; that option, UseSingleInstance, is off by default). To see the ANSI palette as well as the background, you can run this loop in the test window:
```
for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7; do printf '\e[3%sm normal%s \e[9%sm bright%s \e[2;3%sm faint%s\e[0m\n' $i $i $i $i $i $i; done
```
It comes from the script I used for one of that afternoon's light-mode screenshots (13:49). The live-switch window in Verify printed a single color0–color7 row instead, with a command I didn't record.

Expected: the colors of the profile for Plasma's current mode. Plasma was dark here and the window came up dark, background pixel 24,25,27.
Switch Plasma to the other scheme and back while the test window is open. First, the scheme the session is on:
```
$ kreadconfig6 --file kdeglobals --group General --key ColorScheme
BreezeDark
```
Expected: the current scheme's name. Here ~/.config/kdeglobals itself has no ColorScheme= line; the value comes from ~/.config/kdedefaults/kdeglobals, which is first in XDG_CONFIG_DIRS in my session. Switch to the other scheme first: by its source, plasma-apply-colorscheme given the scheme that is already set only reports that and changes nothing (not tried). Mine was BreezeDark, so:
```
plasma-apply-colorscheme BreezeLight
```
Wait about 4 s and look at the test window, then switch back:
```
plasma-apply-colorscheme BreezeDark
```
By its source (plasma-workspace 6.7.5), each successful call prints Successfully applied the color scheme <name> to your current Plasma session. Expected: the open window turns light, then dark again.

Screenshots, for the screen half of Verify (optional): save the test window before the first command and about 4 s after each, as ~/konsole-test/1-dark-start.png, 2-after-light.png and 3-after-dark.png (names for a start in dark mode; mkdir -p ~/konsole-test first). I found the window with xdotool search --pid <PID> --onlyvisible, where <PID> is the konsole --separate process ($! right after step 4), and saved it with ImageMagick's import -window <WINDOW_ID> <FILE>. The exact command lines weren't recorded, and my files went to a different directory; I copied them into ~/konsole-test/ for the re-run in Field notes.

Run both directions. On my box a window that comes up dark proves little: DefaultProfile is my dark profile, so with the sync off a new window is dark in dark mode too. The switch to light shows that the sync works. The switch back shows that the dark profile is still dark; if both profiles carry the light scheme (Failure modes, row 2), a window in light mode looks right either way.

These two scheme names are the only ones I tried. My session was dark, on the Breeze Dark global theme (LookAndFeelPackage=org.kde.breezedark.desktop), so the round trip ended in dark mode, where it started. If you start in light mode or on another scheme, end on the one you started from [UNVERIFIED: not tried].

Gotchaplasma-apply-colorscheme writes to kdeglobals

After the round trip, ~/.config/kdeglobals had its own ColorScheme=BreezeDark line under [General] (step 6). A key in that file takes precedence over the kdedefaults value, so the scheme was now set in ~/.config/kdeglobals itself. I put the copy back so the file is as it was. Whether the extra line would block Plasma's automatic switching, I didn't check.
Put kdeglobals back.
```
$ diff ~/konsole-backup/kdeglobals ~/.config/kdeglobals
135a136
> ColorScheme=BreezeDark
$ cp -p ~/konsole-backup/kdeglobals ~/.config/kdeglobals
$ diff ~/konsole-backup/kdeglobals ~/.config/kdeglobals
```
Expected: the first diff shows what the test added (one line here). After the copy, diff prints nothing. The copy brings back the whole file as it was at step 1: if the first diff shows more than the ColorScheme= line, delete that one line in an editor instead (not tried). Don't remove it with kwriteconfig6 --delete: that leaves a ColorScheme[$d] marker behind (Failure modes, row 4). I didn't check what copying the file back does to a running session, so finish step 5 on the scheme you want to keep.
Close the test window and restart Konsole. By its source, Konsole applies the sync when a window is created and when its settings change from inside Konsole (MainWindow.cpp), and I didn't check whether a running Konsole notices an outside edit of konsolerc. A new Konsole process has it, as the test window did.

Kde on tsvinc

Konsole had the switch all along

Make Konsole follow Plasma's light/dark color scheme

Before you start#

Steps#

Two libavcodecs behind one soname