Visual Studio Code Extension - Vibrancy Continued

Enable Acrylic/Glass effect in VS Code.

[!TIP] Solutions for common issues can be found in the FAQ and Known Errors

See also: Windows 10/11 notes and Linux notes

       

 

Links: GitHub | Visual Studio Code Marketplace | Open VSX Registry | issues

Maintenance of this project is made possible by all the contributors and sponsors. If you'd like to sponsor this project and have your avatar or company logo appear below, click here. Any support is greatly appreciated 💖

⚠️ "Your VSCode installation appears to be corrupt"

This extension works by editing VS Code's checksum-verified HTML files, which means that a warning prompt will appear after installing and enabling Vibrancy Continued. This warning is safe to disregard, and all changes can be reverted. Click on the cogwheel and select Don't Show Again to hide it.

If you don't have the option to hide the alert, or to fix an [Unsupported] warning in VSCode's title bar, please refer to this extension: Fix VSCode Checksums Next.

Supported Operating Systems

✔ macOS (Intel & Apple Silicon)

✔ Windows 10/11 (x64 & ARM64)

✔ Linux (transparency only, blur requires a compositor such as KWin, Hyprland, or Picom)

✔ NixOS (via an automatic writable copy — see NixOS notes)

Supported code editors

✔ Visual Studio Code (v1.86 and newer)

✔ VSCodium

✔ Code - OSS

✔ Cursor

✔ Antigravity

✔ Devin

Some editors may present a persistent warning warning about the installation being corrupted, use this extension to fix it: Fix VSCode Checksums Next.

Getting Started

1. Install the extension from Visual Studio Code Marketplace.

2. Press F1 and activate command "Reload Vibrancy."

3. Restart VSCode when prompted.

Each time VS Code is updated, please re-enable Vibrancy using the same steps. If you're experiencing issues, please check the FAQs.

🪟 Windows 10/11 notes

Vibrancy works out of the box on Windows — no extra setup is required. By default the window is borderless and opaque, so Windows Aero Snap, maximize, and resize all keep working.

Borderless look vs. window snapping (Windows 10)

On Windows there's one unavoidable trade-off, because a transparent window on Windows is a "layered" window that the OS excludes from Aero Snap and maximize:

• Default (windowMode: auto / frameless) — opaque window. Snap, maximize, and resize work, but Windows 10 draws a thin 1px border around the window (it disappears while you drag, and Windows 11 doesn't show it at all). This is a cosmetic limitation of opaque resizable windows on Win10 that can't be removed without breaking snapping. (On older VSCode builds, where opaque vibrancy rendered incorrectly, auto instead uses a transparent window — no border, but no snapping; this matches frameless-transparent below.)
• Pixel-perfect (windowMode: frameless-transparent) — fully transparent window. No border at all, the cleanest possible look — but Aero Snap / maximize stop working.

[!TIP] Want the borderless look and snapping? Set "vscode_vibrancy.windowMode": "frameless-transparent" for the pixel-perfect window, and use a third-party window-snapping utility (e.g. FancyZones from PowerToys) to get snapping back. If you'd rather keep native snapping and don't mind the 1px Win10 border, just leave windowMode on auto.

Windows 11 materials: Acrylic vs Mica

On Windows 11 you can choose the backdrop material via vscode_vibrancy.type:

• acrylic (default) — a real-time translucent blur of whatever is behind the window, including your other windows and the desktop. This is the classic see-through "glass" vibrancy effect.
• mica — samples only your desktop wallpaper (not the windows behind VSCode) and is mostly static, so it costs almost nothing on GPU/battery. It's Microsoft's recommended material for app backgrounds and gives a subtle, native Windows 11 feel rather than a see-through effect.
• tabbed — "Mica Alt", a more strongly tinted variant of Mica.

[!TIP] On a laptop, or if you want the native Windows 11 look without the continuous-blur power cost of Acrylic, set "vscode_vibrancy.type": "mica" (or "tabbed"). Just note that Mica reflects your wallpaper only — it won't show the windows behind VSCode the way Acrylic does. Mica and Mica Alt are Windows 11 only; on Windows 10 they automatically fall back to Acrylic.

Legacy / troubleshooting: window can't be resized, or text looks distorted

Some VSCode/Electron versions (and certain GPUs) had a hardware-acceleration bug where enabling Vibrancy made windows non-resizable/snappable/maximizable, or produced distorted, blurry text. If you don't experience this, you can ignore this section. If you do, apply the following mitigation:

1. Update your VSCode shortcut to include --disable-gpu-compositing at the end of the "Target" field, for example: "C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe" --disable-gpu-compositing
2. (optional) Update your shell configuration to add the same argument to code, needed if VSCode isn't running when you use code
3. Install Vibrancy Continued
4. Go to settings and set Window Mode (vscode_vibrancy.windowMode) to framed
5. Press F1 and select Reload Vibrancy

For more information, see issues #140 and #122.

Options

Type (vscode_vibrancy.type)

Native method of Vibrancy effect. See here for screenshots of all available options: Vibrancy Types

• auto : Automatically switch with system version.
• transparent: Make VSCode transparent only, without blur. (Linux default)
• acrylic : Acrylic Fluent Design blur. (Windows)
• mica : Mica background material — tints with the desktop wallpaper. (Windows 11 only)
• tabbed : Mica Alt (Tabbed) background material — a stronger Mica variant. (Windows 11 only)
• under-window, fullscreen-ui, appearance-based, light, dark, titlebar, selection, menu, popover, sidebar, medium-light, ultra-dark: (MacOS only)

On Windows 10, mica and tabbed aren't available and fall back to acrylic. The Mica/Tabbed materials use the modern DWM backdrop API, which only exists on Windows 11.

Opacity (vscode_vibrancy.opacity)

Opacity of Vibrancy effect. -1 is theme default, 0 is maximum transparency, and 1 will remove all transparency.

value: -1.0 ~ 1.0

Background Override (vscode_vibrancy.backgroundOverride)

Override the theme's background color for the vibrancy opacity effect. Uses VSCode's built-in color picker. Leave empty to use the theme default.

color string (e.g. #000000), default is empty

Custom imports (vscode_vibrancy.imports)

Import any custom CSS/JS files into the VSCode editor directly without requiring custom CSS extensions. The files will be imported in the order they are listed. On Windows, forward slashes must be used.

Use this feature to add a custom Vibrancy Continued theme or modify an existing one.

EXAMPLES:

• Windows: [ C:/Users/MyUserName/Documents/custom.css ]
• macOS: [ /Users/MyUserName/Documents/custom.css ]
• Linux: [ /home/MyUserName/Documents/custom.css ]

value: array[]

Prevent Flash (vscode_vibrancy.preventFlash)

Use a new method for preventing window flashing during resizing. Eliminates the need for a refresh interval, but may be less compatible in some cases.

boolean, default is true

Window Mode (vscode_vibrancy.windowMode)

Controls how the VSCode window frame and transparency are applied. Leave this on auto unless you're troubleshooting a rendering issue — auto already picks the right combination for your platform.

enum, default is auto

Value	Frame	Window	Notes
auto	platform default	platform default	Recommended. macOS & Linux → borderless + transparent (on macOS this fixes the file-browser hover flash, #207); Windows → borderless + opaque on current VSCode (Aero Snap works; thin border on Win10), borderless + transparent on older VSCode (no snap).
framed	OS title bar/frame	opaque	Most compatible. Use if a borderless window misbehaves for you.
frameless	borderless	opaque	Keeps Windows Aero Snap / maximize / resize, at the cost of a thin window border on Windows 10 (Windows 11 has none). On macOS an opaque window can leave "ghost" artifacts in the file tree on some layouts, so prefer auto / frameless-transparent there.
frameless-transparent	borderless	transparent	The macOS & Linux default. Fully borderless, and on macOS fixes the file-browser hover flash (#207). On Windows, Aero Snap / maximize won't work (see the Windows note below). Also required for the transparent vibrancy type.

The window's transparency is not the same as the vibrancy effect: vibrancy shows fine on an opaque window too (macOS via the native effect view, Windows via the DWM material / accent on the window). On Windows we use an opaque window so Aero Snap keeps working (a transparent window there is a layered window, which the OS excludes from snapping). On macOS we use a transparent window because an opaque one leaves stale "ghost" pixels in the file tree on some layouts — and its power cost is negligible (the GPU difference is a matter of utilization %, not actual battery draw).

Deprecated settings: vscode_vibrancy.forceFramelessWindow and vscode_vibrancy.disableFramelessWindow are replaced by windowMode. If still set (and windowMode is left at auto) they are migrated automatically: disableFramelessWindow → framed, and forceFramelessWindow → the frameless mode appropriate for your platform — frameless-transparent on macOS and Linux, frameless (opaque) on Windows and with Windows 11 Mica/Acrylic materials. You don't need to do anything, but you can switch to windowMode directly to silence the deprecation warning.

Disable Theme Fixes (vscode_vibrancy.disableThemeFixes)

Disable fixes to Default Dark and Default Light themes for non-VSCode editors like Cursor.

Disable Color Customizations (vscode_vibrancy.disableColorCustomizations)

Prevent Vibrancy from modifying workbench.colorCustomizations which is used to make some elements like the terminal vibrant. Enable this if you want to manage color customizations yourself, or if you use a custom CSS theme that handles its own background colors and transparency. When enabled mid-session, any previously written vibrancy colors will be restored to their original values.

boolean, default is false

Refresh interval (vscode_vibrancy.refreshInterval)

Refresh interval (in milliseconds) for making the background transparent after window resizing. Lower values make the update less visible at the cost of increased CPU utilization. Ignored when using "Prevent Flash" method.

value: 1 ~ 1000, default is 10

Automatic theme switching (vscode_vibrancy.enableAutoTheme)

Enable automatic dark/light mode switching based on OS mode. Requires window.autoDetectColorScheme VSCode setting to also be enabled.

boolean, default is false

Preferred dark/light theme (vscode_vibrancy.preferredDarkTheme / vscode_vibrancy.preferredLightTheme)

Select which themes to use for light and dark modes, they will be used instead of the main Vibrancy Continued theme selected.

The previous misspelled keys vscode_vibrancy.preferedDarkTheme / vscode_vibrancy.preferedLightTheme are deprecated but still honored — if you have them set, your value is used automatically. Move it to the corrected key to silence the deprecation warning.

theme (vscode_vibrancy.theme)

Select Vibrancy theme:

• Default Dark
• Dark (Only Subbar)
• Default Light
• Light (Only Subbar)
• Noir et blanc
• Tokyo Night Storm
• Tokyo Night Storm (Outer)
• Catppuccin Mocha
• Solarized Dark+
• GitHub Dark Default

Theme	Screenshot
Default Dark
Dark (Only Subbar)
Noir et blanc
Tokyo Night Storm
Tokyo Night Storm (Only Subbar)
Solarized Dark+ (with theme: Solarized)
Catppuccin Mocha
GitHub Dark Default
Paradise Smoked Glass
Paradise Frosted Glass

You can contribute more themes! see here.

❄️ NixOS notes

On NixOS the VSCode package lives in the read-only /nix/store, so its files can't be patched in place — not even with root. Instead, when you enable Vibrancy on a Nix-installed VSCode (nixpkgs vscode, vscodium, etc.), the extension automatically:

1. Copies the whole VSCode package into ~/.local/share/vscode-vibrancy/ (~650 MB, one-time per VSCode version). The nixpkgs build is already linked against absolute store paths, so the copy runs from your home directory without any extra setup — your original installation is never modified.
2. Applies the vibrancy patches to that copy.
3. Adds a "Visual Studio Code (Vibrancy)" entry to your application menu that launches the patched copy.

Use the (Vibrancy) menu entry as your daily driver. The first launch may show the usual "installation appears to be corrupt" warning — click Don't Show Again.

Terminal / code CLI: typing code in a shell still launches the unpatched store installation. The copy is always reachable at the stable path ~/.local/share/vscode-vibrancy/current/bin/code (.../bin/codium for VSCodium) — the current symlink is updated automatically whenever the copy is rebuilt, so it survives system updates. To make it your default code, add an alias to your shell config (or the equivalent programs.bash/programs.zsh option in your Nix config):

alias code="$HOME/.local/share/vscode-vibrancy/current/bin/code"

After a nixos-rebuild that updates VSCode, the copy becomes outdated. The extension detects this on the next launch and offers to rebuild the copy from the new version with one click. Note that if you also run nix-collect-garbage before rebuilding the copy, the old copy's store dependencies may be removed and the (Vibrancy) entry may fail to start — in that case launch your regular VSCode once and re-enable Vibrancy from there.

To remove everything, run "Disable Vibrancy" (or uninstall the extension): the copy and the menu entry are deleted, leaving only your untouched store installation. Blur itself still depends on your compositor (KWin, Hyprland, Picom, …), same as on any other Linux distro.

Other immutable installs (Flatpak, distros with a read-only /usr) are detected too, but currently unsupported — the extension will tell you instead of failing mid-patch.

FAQs

How to uninstall Vibrancy?

Press F1 or ⌘+Shift+P and activate command "Disable Vibrancy", then restart Visual Studio Code.

You can also just uninstall the extension and restart VSCode, which will automatically remove Vibrancy.

Effect doesn't work correctly in VSCode terminal?

Check your settings. You should change the renderer type of the terminal to dom.

"terminal.integrated.gpuAcceleration": "off"

EROFS: read-only file system when enabling Vibrancy on macOS?

Your installation of VSCode is affected by App Translocation.

To fix this, either use the Finder and move VSCode to /Applications (or move it out of /Applications and then back in), or run the following terminal command:

sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app"

I'm on Windows 10 and I'm experiencing lag when dragging the window

Please read here for details.

VSCode window cannot be resized/moved/maximized after enabling Vibrancy

Please see Windows 10/11 notes at the top of the description.

Effect doesn't work, but there are no errors

Ensure that you don't have transparency effects disabled globally through your OS settings.

This can usually be found under Accessibility settings, and it may be called "Transparency effects" or "Reduce transparency." If that didn't help, you can also check the Console section in VSCode's Developer Tools, which can be accessed through the command palette.

If nothing else worked, try reinstalling VSCode, you won't lose any settings and this will ensure that your VSCode installation is consistent.

Linux: Why is the background transparent but not blurred?

Currently, we do not support native blur effects on Linux. While transparency can work on its own, blur usually depends on additional support from the system compositor. To achieve a blur effect, use transparent mode together with a compositor such as KWin, Hyprland, or Picom.

Contributing

Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Vibrancy relies on user contributions, and as such, any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

If you have a suggestion that would make this better, please fork the repo and create a pull request. You can also simply open an issue with the tag "enhancement".

Don't forget to give the project a star! Thanks again!

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

When creating a PR, please target the development branch.

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for more information.

Thanks ⭐

EYHN : for making the original Vibrancy that this is a fork of

be5invis/vscode-custom-css : The basis of this extension program

DIYgod : Fix issues with VSCode 1.36