Reconsider adding settings for preferred icon theme for light and dark modes

[brawaru]

For a long time VS Code has preferences for light and dark modes, as well as automatic switching based on the current system theme. Ever since those were added, I started using, as my system is already configured to switch themes and brightness automatically based on sunrise/sunset times, which greatly reduces eye strain. However, what always confused me, is that there were never such settings for the file icon theme.

It's obvious that there cannot be a universal colourful theme that will suit light and dark modes. Using file icon theme that is designed for dark mode in light mode (and the opposite) will make icons unreadable, if at all visible. So it's only fair that each mode would have a specific file icon assigned to it. This is why editors like Zed provide preferences for that.

However, I was beyond astonished to see how VS Code developer simply dismissed this glaring accessibility issue as something that can be solved by the extension. Of course, you can still switch themes manually every time and remember their names by hand, but this is just unnecessary friction. It's also really frustrating, because for some reason VS Code team believes that I absolutely need Copilot to install it every time I update VS Code, but somehow two settings to fix actual issue is an unnecessary bloat, even though there is already similar functionality to that.

I sincerely ask you to reconsider your stance and adopting or re-implementing an existing PR to add those settings: #232336. Otherwise, please provide a more reasonable explanation why this functionality cannot be accepted and must be implemented by a third-party extension, besides just "naah, I don't feel like it", because that's not a good reason at all.

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Previous issue: #185727

[vs-code-engineering]

This feature request is now a candidate for our backlog. The community has 60 days to upvote the issue. If it receives 20 upvotes we will move it to our backlog. If not, we will close it. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!

[OrzMiku]

I need this feature as well.

I'm currently using the following configuration:

{
  "workbench.preferredDarkColorTheme": "Catppuccin Macchiato",
  "workbench.preferredLightColorTheme": "Catppuccin Latte"
}

On different devices, my system theme might be Dark or Light. However, there's currently only workbench.iconTheme, which forces me to manually switch icon settings on different devices.

The preferred[Dark/Light]ColorTheme settings are designed precisely for automatic theme switching between dark and light modes, but having only workbench.iconTheme breaks this seamless experience.

[rubin55]

How does one "upvote"?

[OrzMiku]

How does one "upvote"?

[aeschli]

There's already an extension that implements the functionality: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=kvoon.preferred-icon-theme.
Please check it out it out and help support author with feedback and contributions.

There are currently no plans to add that functionality to VS Code:

• extensions are a great way of sharing the work: The main work is the maintenance work. Investigating issues, fixing issues, reviewing contributions. communicating with the issue reporters. Like everywhere, we only have limited resources in the VS Code core team.
• extension authors can try out new ideas and functionality much easier that we can in VS Code, where we need to look out for consistency across features and backward compatibility
• we want to keep the core of VS Code lean. We already have way too many settings.
• we invested a lot in the extensibility of VS Code and the extension marketplace. It's only a few clicks to install an extension.

[OrzMiku]

There's already an extension that implements the functionality: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=kvoon.preferred-icon-theme. Please check it out it out and help support author with feedback and contributions.

There are currently no plans to add that functionality to VS Code:

• extensions are a great way of sharing the work: The main work is the maintenance work. Investigating issues, fixing issues, reviewing contributions. communicating with the issue reporters. Like everywhere, we only have limited resources in the VS Code core team.
• extension authors can try out new ideas and functionality much easier that we can in VS Code, where we need to look out for consistency across features and backward compatibility
• we want to keep the core of VS Code lean. We already have way too many settings.
• we invested a lot in the extensibility of VS Code and the extension marketplace. It's only a few clicks to install an extension.

The core problem is that VS Code already provides workbench.preferredDarkColorTheme and workbench.preferredLightColorTheme. This implies that VS Code officially supports and encourages automatic theme switching based on the system's mode. However, this feature is currently incomplete. A color theme and an icon theme are two parts of the same whole—the user's visual experience. An icon theme designed for dark mode is often unusable in light mode (and vice-versa). By only providing settings for the color theme, the automatic switching feature is fundamentally broken, forcing users to manually intervene, which defeats the entire purpose.

The history of VS Code is filled with excellent, popular community extensions that were eventually integrated into the core (e.g., Auto Rename Tag, settings sync). This happens when a feature is small, universally useful, and core to the editor's experience. A seamless dark/light mode transition is exactly that. The existence of a popular extension doesn't prove the feature should remain an extension; it proves there is a clear and persistent demand for it.

This isn't a request for "bloat" or an obscure new feature. This is a request to complete an existing, shipping feature (automatic theme preference) and fix its most obvious inconsistency. Adding two settings (workbench.preferredDarkIconTheme and workbench.preferredLightIconTheme) is a minimal change that provides enormous value and logical consistency to a feature you've already built.

This is a recurring accessibility and usability issue. I sincerely ask the team to reconsider this stance and treat icon themes as the essential counterparts to color themes that they are.