How to Change Accent Colors in Windows 10 and macOS?

Whenever you open an application or dialog box, the operating system will show the menu bar and borders in default color. This is referred as accent color. Windows 10 and macOS use blue as an accent color by default. If you are bored seeing the default color then here is how you can change it on your computer.

Change Accent Color in Windows 10?

Press, “Win + E” keys to open Windows File Explorer. You can see the accent color of the menu bar and borders are by default in blue.

Press “Win + I” shortcut keys to open Windows Settings app. Again, you will see everything in blue accent color. Click on the “Personalization” option.

Go to “Colors” section and you can view the preview picture of the current color scheme on the right pane. You have many options to set the accent colors under “Choose your color” section.

• Check the box “Automatically pick an accent color from my background” to change the accent color based on the background color. You will see the preview automatically changed and all the open windows will reflect the changes immediately.
• Recent colors – shows the list of recently used accent colors.
• Windows colors – list of colors used in Windows 10 for you to easily choose from.

Setting Custom Color

Custom color – click on the + button to choose the color. You can do the followings:

• Choose the color from the preview palette.
• Click on “More” and select RGB or HSV from the dropdown. Enter RGB, HSV or Hex code values for your favorite color.
• View the preview of the selected color.
• Windows 10 will show you a warning message if the selected color is hard to read.
• Click “done” button to set the selected color as your accent color.
• The accent colors on the open windows will instantly change to the selected color.

Additional Options

You have few more options available to customize the accent colors and appearance of windows.

Transparency

Enable the transparency effect to make the background visible when you work on any window. We recommend disabling transparency effect to avoid background interference with your window screen.

Apply Accent Color to Start Menu and Taskbar

You can apply accent colors to title bars and start menus, actions center and taskbar. Windows 10 will enable the “Title bars” option by default. Because the entire display will change when you apply bright accent color to start and taskbar.

Choose App Mode

The last option is to choose light or dark mode for your display. Though this will not affect the accent colors, you can try out the dark mode to check the look and feel of the window screens.

Which Applications Work with Accent Colors?

This is a good question as most of the default Windows 10 apps will NOT work with accent colors. You can view File Explorer and other apps like Google Chrome and Firefox browsers will adapt to the set accent color. However, default apps like Word, Outlook and Edge will still show the default blue or black colors without impact.

Change Accent Color in macOS

If you are a Mac user then similar options are available in macOS to customize accent colors. Click on the Apple menu on top left corner and go to “System Preferences…”.

Click on “General” option.

Here you can setup the accent colors for you Mac.

• Change accent color from the option.
• Choose the highlight color which will be used when you highlight files in Finder window.
• Choose light or dark mode.

Once you select the color, Mac will automatically change the accent colors of the dropdown and other related items. Remember Mac and Windows works different. For example, the title bar and dock colors will always be in grey regardless of the accent color you choose. However on Windows 10 you can change the title bar and taskbar colors with accent color. In summary, macOS offers limited options for customizing your accent colors compared to Windows 10.