How to Install Custom Themes in OBS Studio

Personalizing your streaming setup can make your broadcasting experience much more enjoyable and tailored to your brand. This guide provides a quick, step-by-step walkthrough on how to find, download, and apply custom community-made UI themes to OBS Studio on your computer.

Step 1: Download a Custom OBS Theme

To begin, you need to find and download a community-made theme. 1. Visit the OBS Forums and navigate to the Themes section. 2. Browse the available options and download your preferred theme. 3. The download will typically be a .zip or .rar archive containing a .qss stylesheet file and a directory folder with the same name containing the theme’s assets (icons and images).

Step 2: Locate the OBS Studio Themes Folder

To install the theme, you must place the downloaded files into the correct directory on your computer.

• For Windows Users:
  1. Open File Explorer and navigate to your OBS installation directory. By default, this is:
     C:\Program Files\obs-studio\data\obs-studio\themes\
  2. If you installed OBS in a custom location, navigate to that specific directory and find the data\obs-studio\themes\ path.
• For macOS Users:
  1. Open your Applications folder.
  2. Right-click on the OBS application icon and select Show Package Contents.
  3. Navigate to Contents/Resources/data/obs-studio/themes/.

Step 3: Install the Theme Files

1. Extract the downloaded .zip or archive file.
2. Copy both the <ThemeName>.qss file and the corresponding <ThemeName> asset folder.
3. Paste both items directly into the themes folder you located in Step 2. (Note: You may need administrator permissions to paste files into this folder on Windows).

Step 4: Apply the Theme in OBS Studio

1. Open OBS Studio. If the software was already open, close it and restart it to refresh the directory.
2. Go to the top menu and select File > Settings (or click the Settings button in the Controls dock).
3. In the General tab, locate the Theme dropdown menu at the top of the window.
4. Click the dropdown and select your newly installed custom theme.
5. Click Apply, then click OK to save your changes. Your interface will instantly update to the new custom design.