Transform Your IntelliJ IDEA: Top Themes, Icons, Fonts & UI Tweaks

Today we share several tips to beautify IDEA settings and make your IDE stand out.

First, the default IDEA theme is functional but plain.

After applying a new theme, the interface looks much more attractive.

Below is a mind‑map summarizing all the IDEA settings covered.

Theme

IDEA provides a light and a dark theme, which may not satisfy everyone, so you can install additional themes from the plugin repository.

Open

Settings → Plugins

and search for

/tag:Theme

to see all theme plugins.

Recommended theme plugins:

Gradianto

Material Theme UI

Gradianto

This plugin offers dark‑mode themes that are easy on the eyes.

It provides four themes:

Nature Green

Deep Ocean

Dark Fuchsia

Midnight Blue

Material Theme UI

This plugin not only provides several themes but also lets you customize other UI elements.

After installation, a settings window appears.

You can select your preferred theme, such as Atom One Dark .

Other UI tweaks include adjusting tab size and height, setting the highlight color for selected tabs, enabling the Compact mode to reduce UI height, and configuring the Components option.

Icons

IDEA’s default file icons are limited (e.g., pom files). Install the Atom Material Icons plugin to add icons for many file types and folders.

After installation, go to Settings → Atom Material Icons to enable file, directory, and UI icons.

It is recommended to keep Enable File Icons and Enable Directory Icons enabled, while disabling Enable PSI Icons to avoid confusing Java file icons.

Fonts

Two programmer‑friendly fonts are recommended: Fira Code and JetBrains Mono . Both support ligatures that render common symbols (e.g., != as ≠) to improve readability.

Install the font, then go to Settings → Font and select either font, enabling Enable ligatures . You may also increase the default font size in Material Theme UI.

Background Image

IDEA’s default background is a solid color. To set a background image, open Settings → Appearance and click the Background Image button.

The background image selection window appears as shown.

Other

Finally, the Rainbow Brackets plugin colors matching brackets in various vivid colors, making it easier to identify bracket pairs.