Gmail Themes
Personalize your Gmail by choosing a background theme, which adds some additional flair to your inbox.
- Open Gmail.
- Click the gear in the top right.
- Select Themes.
Color, HD, and Classic themes
Some themes change during the day, and if you select one of these themes, you'll see a drop-down menu to select a location. We'll use the location you provide to correctly time theme changes with your local sunrise, sunset, and/or weather. If you don't enter a city, or if you enter an invalid one, we'll set your location to the capital city of the country you selected.
You can tell which themes change by looking at the lower right hand corner of the theme's thumbnail image. Small icons indicate if the theme changes with the weather, time of day, or day of the week. Also, if you see a white corner it means that that the message list background in the theme is light; if it's black, that means it's dark.
Google developed most of the themes, but some have been designed by external artists. For example, Cherry Blossom was designed by by Vania Sofandi. The Wood, Desk, Beach, Mountains, Pebbles, Ocean, Planets, Turf and Treetops themes use imagery provided by iStockphoto.
Custom themes
Have a picture of your dog that you'd like to make your background theme? Have no fear, you can also select your own images to use as a theme. Select one of the two options under the "Custom themes" section: Light or Dark. You can then pick an image (we recommend that you select one larger than 2560 x 1920 px) from your computer, phone, photo albums, and the web. When you upload an image, it goes into your private albums and will only be visible to you.
You can also choose a custom theme from a selection of featured photos. These featured photos may include options that aren't well-suited to Gmail, so we suggest trying different options to find the one that's right for you.