How To Load a Theme on an Android Phone

Figured out how to load ROMs, do Apps2SD and all that good stuff? But for the life of you can’t change your theme on your phone? Well lets do it then!

I. Finding a Theme/ROM Combo that You Like (The Hardest Step)

1. Check out our downloads section and use the Search bar to search for “G1 Themes’, “Magic 32A Themes”, “myTouch Themes’, etc. and you should be presented with a whole bunch of themes to choose from. You can also goto Forums.XDA-Developers.com and search through their Themes section as well.

2. Find a Theme you like and then look to see what ROM it is meant to work on (usually listed in the first post of the Theme topic).

3. Download and install the ROM that the theme is meant for (NOT THE THEME YET) using one of our How To Load a Custom ROM procedures. Please keep in mind that there are currently no Themes for any Hero ROMs, so if you are using a Hero ROM you can stop right here 🙁

4. Once you have installed the ROM and found the Theme you want to put on it goto the next section.

II. How to Load the Theme

1. Download the Theme, they come just like ROMs as a .zip file.

2. Rename the .zip to update.zip (make sure it is not update.zip.zip or spelled wrong) and put it on your SD card (not in any folders).

3. Turn off the phone and turn it back on by holding down Home and Power to get to Recovery mode.

4. Hit Apply update.zip (there is no need to wipe with themes generally, if it gets stuck on a boot loop then go back to recovery wipe and apply again).

5. Done!

III. Changing Themes

1. If you want to switch to a different them just repeat section II. But it is always a good idea to flash the ROM again first to get back to the original theme before loading a new one (otherwise you may end of with a mix of the 2 themes).

2. Repeat till your heart’s content.

12 thoughts on “How To Load a Theme on an Android Phone”

    1. Hello Andrew,

      1. Not up to me, devs need to make themes for the Hero first (I have the Hero too, I want them as well lol).
      2. You need to uninstall the app and reinstall it. You need to have the partitions, and load the ROM then download the apps AFTER that.

  1. HEY UNLOCKR! you should post a video on how to PORT THEMES.

    im on amon ra’s 1.6 and there are only 3 themes for it, so i wanted to learn how to port some cm themes over to it. any help is appreciated!

  2. Hey Unlockr,

    Doesn’t this method means bricking you’re htc hero?

    The link in the one-click-root method (this link: http://zenthought.org/content/project/flashrec) warns about this:

    “Some of you have been flashing cyanogen’s theme template after starting the installed recovery image. This will brick your phone. Please do not flash an image named “template-*.zip” using recovery mode.”

    Is this method really safe?

    1. Guido B,

      Theme templates are not the same as themes. (He warns against files that start with the word Template-(NAMEOFTHEME).zip that is not what these are.
      BUT if you have a Hero you cannot load any themes anyway just because noone has made any for the Hero, if you look at all the ones listed here you will see that they all say for other devices so do not load them on your phone unless one says for the Hero (there might be one or two now that are for the Hero since its been out a while now)

  3. hey unlockr!

    i have a rooted mytouch stock ROM. not a cyanogen… just the stock ROM rooted. i believe i found it here on your site!
    anyway, will this theme work for me?
    *Blue Cyanogen_Mod: p_s_blue_update_cm_v4.0a
    found here:
    http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=551646

    i don’t want to brick this, and it’s been months since i’ve messed with this stuff, so i don’t want to mess up my phone!

    also, what would happen if the wrong theme were loaded?

    Thanks!

    1. Derek,

      The theme must say it works on the ROM you are using (so you need to know what ROM you have).
      Once you know what ROM you are using if it doesn’t say that ROM in the Theme then do NOT use it. It can mess the phone up (always do a Nandroid Backup before flashing a theme though and that should help you).

  4. Hey unlocker I’m u orsing the dudescupcake jesusfreak 1.5 firmware version 1.5 I wanted to get cayanomas rom and themes how do I do that or can I use the themes from cayanoman or is a place where I can download themes for my phone. I downloaded the cayonoman red sun theme and tried running it on my phone it frooze my phone I reflashed the cupcake on my phone now its working fine I dont want tot mess up my phone can u help…

  5. Hey if I download a theme do I need to download the stock theme and put it back on there then put another and if I download a theme will I still be able to use my open home

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