Frosted glass (acrylic) look for VS Code on Windows 11: rounded floating cards, no title bar, clean tabs. Built on Vibrancy Continued and Bearded Theme Stained Blue.
Installation
Launch VS Code Quick Open (Ctrl+P), paste the following command, and press enter.
A frosted glass look for VS Code on Windows 11: the window turns into acrylic glass, the editor
groups become rounded floating cards, the title bar goes away and the tabs sit cleanly on the cards.
It is built on two extensions that are installed with it:
Vibrancy Continued
makes the window transparent (acrylic). It patches VS Code's own files, so VS Code shows an
"installation appears to be corrupt" notice: that is expected and can be dismissed.
Bearded Theme,
variant Stained Blue, gives the colors.
What it changes
Acrylic window with a navy tint, rounded 16px cards, no outlines or separators.
No title bar and no window frame (the menu shows with Alt). Toggle it back any time. Small
minimize, maximize and close buttons sit at the top right, and the empty part of the tab row
drags the window.
Active tab in the card color with curved "shoulders"; inactive tabs see-through; tabs shrink
to fit instead of being cut at the edge; no ... button in the tab row.
System font (Segoe UI Variable), rounder menus and command palette.
Optional: restyles the Claude Code chat panel (rounder corners, blue instead of the
red/orange accents, blue tab icons, no shaded box behind your messages, icon-only permission
button). It does that by appending a small stylesheet to that extension's files and recoloring
its icons (originals are kept and restored on removal), and re-applies it whenever
Claude Code updates. Turn it off with stainedGlass.styleClaudeChat.
Commands
Command
What it does
Stained Glass: Apply the glass look
Applies everything and offers to restart.
Stained Glass: Show/Hide the title bar
Toggles the title bar (VS Code asks to restart).
Stained Glass: Remove the glass look
Restores every setting it changed.
Stained Glass: Diagnose the glass
Not transparent? Finds the likely cause and copies a report.
Settings
Setting
Default
stainedGlass.hideTitleBar
true
Hide the title bar and window frame.
stainedGlass.windowButtons
true
Minimize/maximize/close buttons at the top right while the title bar is hidden (Windows).
stainedGlass.tintOpacity
0.6
Blue tint over the glass, 0 to 1.
stainedGlass.styleClaudeChat
true
Restyle the Claude Code chat panel.
Notes
With the title bar hidden, drag the window by the empty part of the tab row.
VS Code updates undo Vibrancy's patch and the window goes opaque again. The extension notices it
on startup and offers to turn the glass back on.
Tools that force their own backdrop on every window (the Windhawk mod "Translucent Windows",
Mica For Everyone) override the glass and leave VS Code gray. The extension detects them and
tells you where to exclude Code.exe; it never changes their settings itself.
Made for and tested on Windows 11 with VS Code 1.141.
Português: visual de vidro para o VS Code no Windows 11, com cartões arredondados, sem barra
de título e abas limpas. Use Stained Glass: Mostrar/Esconder a barra de cima para alternar a
barra e Stained Glass: Remover o visual de vidro para desfazer tudo.
