Xcode Classic Theme

Unofficial. This extension is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple Inc. "Xcode" and "Apple" are trademarks of Apple Inc., used here only to identify the color scheme this theme reproduces.

A Visual Studio Code port of Xcode's built-in Default (Dark) and Default (Light) color schemes.

Screenshots

Install

Search for Xcode Classic Theme in the Extensions panel and click Install, or run:

code --install-extension abdullahkaragoz.xcode-classic-theme

Then press Cmd+K Cmd+T (Ctrl+K Ctrl+T on Windows and Linux) and pick Xcode Classic (Dark) or Xcode Classic (Light).

Follow the system appearance

To switch automatically when macOS or Windows toggles between light and dark:

{
  "window.autoDetectColorScheme": true,
  "workbench.preferredDarkColorTheme": "Xcode Classic (Dark)",
  "workbench.preferredLightColorTheme": "Xcode Classic (Light)"
}

Font

Xcode's source editor uses SF Mono Regular. This extension cannot ship the font — Apple's license does not permit redistribution, and VS Code extensions cannot install system fonts. You need to handle this yourself.

macOS: SF Mono is already installed; it ships with Terminal.app.

Windows and Linux: download the SF Mono package from Apple's developer fonts page. It arrives as a .dmg; extract the .otf files with 7-Zip and install them. Note that Apple's license covers a limited set of uses.

Open source alternatives

If you would rather not install SF Mono, these come close. DejaVu Sans Mono is listed first for a reason: SF Mono descends from Menlo, and Menlo is based on DejaVu Sans Mono, so they share an ancestor and similar letterforms.

Settings

{
  "editor.fontFamily": "SF Mono, Menlo, DejaVu Sans Mono, Cascadia Mono, Consolas, monospace",
  "editor.fontSize": 13,
  "editor.fontLigatures": false,
  "editor.lineHeight": 1.45,
  "editor.letterSpacing": 0.2
}

fontFamily is a fallback chain — if SF Mono is missing, VS Code moves to the next available font, so you can paste the list as is.

Xcode does not use ligatures. Keeping fontLigatures off renders != and => as separate glyphs, the way Xcode does.

On size: Xcode defaults to roughly 11 pt, but macOS points and VS Code pixels do not map one to one. Start at 13 on Windows and 12 on macOS.

Interface font: Xcode uses SF Pro for its chrome. VS Code's sidebar, tab and menu fonts cannot be changed by a theme — that requires an extension which patches the VS Code core, which this theme deliberately does not depend on.

Optional layout tweaks

Xcode has no vertical icon strip along the edge of the window. Hiding VS Code's activity bar is the single change that gets closest to Xcode's layout:

{
  "workbench.activityBar.location": "hidden",
  "breadcrumbs.enabled": true,
  "editor.minimap.enabled": false,
  "editor.renderLineHighlight": "line",
  "editor.cursorBlinking": "solid",
  "workbench.tree.indent": 14
}

Explorer, Search and Source Control remain reachable through Ctrl+Shift+E, Ctrl+Shift+F and Ctrl+Shift+G, which is arguably closer to Xcode's Cmd+1, Cmd+2 navigator shortcuts anyway.

Palette

Dark

Light

How the project and SDK split works

Xcode colors identifiers defined in your own project differently from ones that come from the SDK — mint versus purple in dark, teal versus purple in light. This theme reproduces that split through VS Code's semantic highlighting, using the defaultLibrary and declaration token modifiers.

The split therefore requires an active language server (TypeScript, Pylance, C#, rust-analyzer, and so on). In files without one, the theme falls back to TextMate scopes and everything defined locally gets the project color.

Contributing

If you spot a color that does not match Xcode, please open an issue. Including a screenshot from Xcode and the affected TextMate scope or semantic token name makes it much faster to fix. You can find the scope under any cursor position with Developer: Inspect Editor Tokens and Scopes from the command palette.

License

MIT