In short, it is a permission manager for Flatpak applications. Flatseal allows users to change and review the system resource access of installed Flatpak apps. If you are not comfortable executing commands each time to change themes of Flatpak, Flatseal application can help you. Applying GTK Themes and Icons to Flatpak applications with Flatseal (GUI Method) Sudo flatpak override -env=ICON_THEME=my-icon-themeĪnd replace my-theme and my-icon-theme with the folder name of the theme and icon you want to apply (and it must be located in ~/.themes and ~/.icons respectively). Copy and paste the exact theme/icon name in the above command: Give Flatpak applications access to themes and icons directory via terminalĪlternatively, for individual applications, run: sudo flatpak override -env=GTK_THEME=my-theme Sudo flatpak override -env=ICON_THEME=my-icon-themeĪs you can see in the screenshot below, a couple of themes and icons are available. To tell Flatpak which GTK theme/icon to use, first get the name of the desired item and then apply the following command: sudo flatpak override -env=GTK_THEME=my-theme Giving access to the themes and icons directory is not enough because this directory may contain multiple themes.
Sudo flatpak override -filesystem=$HOME/.icons Step 2: Tell Flatpak apps which theme/icon to use sudo flatpak override -filesystem=$HOME/.themes You need to specify the application ID for changing the theme. Notice that you can’t give access to /usr/share/themes because, according to Flatpak documentation they are blacklisted.Īlternatively, you can do this on a per-application basis as well. Sudo flatpak override -filesystem=$HOME/.icons To give all Flatpak packages permission to access ~/.themes and ~/.icons run the following command: sudo flatpak override -filesystem=$HOME/.themes GTK themes are located in /usr/share/themes and /usr/share/icons for all users, and in ~/.themes and ~/.icons for a specific user. Step 1: Give Flatpak apps access to GTK themes and icons location Please note that this method requires that you are familiar with the Linux command line, and you can find your way around the terminal. Recommended Read: Best GTK Themes for Ubuntu and Other Linux Distro You can, however, change it for all Flatpak apps in one single command. Don’t expect it to automatically change the themes of Flatpak apps when you change the system theme. Applying GTK Themes and Icons to Flatpak applications (Command-Line Method)īefore we proceed, let’s understand why Flatpak apps have this behavior.įlatpak apps run inside a ‘container’, so they don’t have access to the host filesystem, network, or physical devices without explicitly setting the appropriate permission, and that is what we are going to do.Īs I said earlier, this is a workaround, not a flawless solution.
Apply GTK theme and icons through GUI with Flatsealġ.Apply GTK theme and icons to Flatpak through command-line.In this tutorial, I will introduce you to a couple of ways to make Flatpak apps aware of external GTK themes and icons. If you have found a beautiful GTK theme, your Flatpak applications will still use their default appearance. However, only a few GTK themes can be installed for the job. The official way to apply GTK themes to Flatpak apps is by installing the desired theme as a Flatpak. Flatpak app does not match the system theme This makes the applications look out of place in your otherwise beautiful setup. One of the reasons why some users avoid installing Flatpak apps is that most Flatpak apps don’t change their appearance as per the current system theme.