02 June 2026, 14:29

Hi everyone,

We've received the following questions:

We have been exploring our Mahara environment and learning how to use it. We were wondering how an admin account can update the environment’s colors, logos, favicons, and other theme elements. 
Is it necessary to create a new theme each time, or is there a repository of existing themes we can choose from?

Thank you very much for your guidance.

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There are a number of ways of changing the theme in Mahara:

1. Use one of the built-in themes. These can be used for the entire site or an institution. You can upload a new logo for each institution, including also one that is mobile friendly in the institution settings.
2. Use the customisable theme. This option is available in an institution, but not on the site level. This allows you to set custom colours for specific areas.
3. Create a custom theme. It's best to use the 'subthemestarter' as that has the basic structure of the theme folder. You can use the 'Raw' theme as a parent theme or any of the other built-in themes. This will then bring the parent themes styling along, so that you only have to update the styles, fonts etc. that you want to overwrite. The README file in the 'theme' folder has more information.
4. If you already have a theme and are upgrading to Mahara 26.04, we've created a theming upgrade guide.

You have most flexibility in creating a theme when you write SASS, which allows you to work with variables. That necessitates that you can run Gulp, which then generates the .css files.

Cheers

Kristina

03 June 2026, 2:08

Subject: Re: Mahara Theme Customization

Hi Kristina,

Thank you for the detailed response.

However, none of the options mentioned quite fit our use case. What we are looking for is the ability to customize the theme, including the logo, color palette, and other visual elements entirely through the UI.

Specifically, we would like to know if there is a way for an admin to make these visual changes directly from the Mahara administration interface, similar to a "theme builder" or "visual customizer" experience.

Could you please advise if such functionality exists, or if it is on the roadmap? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

03 June 2026, 3:27

I too was hoping for this kind of feature. But sadly it doesn't exist. You can create your own stylesheet (not a sass compiled one) but you would still quite a bit of fiddling to get what you want - and you would still need to create your own theme.

It would be good to have a "brand colour" that could be set in the UI and let Mahara handle all the derivatives of that.

03 June 2026, 19:11

Just a text area where you could submit your own stylesheet would be really nice. Does Mahara have this?

Also, I have changed the way Mahara looks in the past. A couple of times. But with upgrades the look often broke. So now I think we will stick to a basic theme. But a custom stylesheet option would be very much appreciated.

05 June 2026, 13:50

Hi all,

Without touching code, you can customise a Configurable Theme built into institution settings. This is the second option Kristina mentioned.

Administration area > Institutions > Settings > Manage [your institution] > Theme > 'Configurable Theme'

From there you can set colours for the header, navigation, links, and text using hex codes or a colour picker. The Logo and mobile logo uploads are on the same page.

Full details: https://manual.mahara.org/en/26.04/administration/institutions.html#use-the-configurable-theme

The logo and mobile logo can be applied to the default institution as well, but the configurable theme can only be customised on a proper institution.

Best,

Doris