# Sharing themes > Export a theme as a file, import someone else's, or publish it in an addon repository. URL: https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/themes/sharing/ Section: Themes & appearance Every theme, yours or a built-in, exports to a single self-contained file. Any `.wmtheme.json` file imports back in, no matter where it came from. An addon repository serves that same format, so publishing a theme takes no extra packaging step. themes/gallery-export-import — The theme gallery, with export and import actions above the cards. ## Exporting a theme Appearance / Keyboard themes Every card in the gallery has an export icon (a small upload glyph), except the **Default (system)** card. That one is generated live from your device's Material You color scheme rather than stored anywhere, so there's nothing fixed to export. Custom themes and every built-in theme export fine. Tap export and the system "Save as" picker opens, so you choose the destination and filename yourself. The suggested name is the theme's own name plus the `.wmtheme.json` extension, so a theme called "Midnight" suggests `Midnight.wmtheme.json`. The picker uses the plain `application/json` MIME type on purpose rather than a custom one, so file managers and chat apps don't hide the file the way they might hide an unrecognized vendor type. What a card exports depends on how the gallery is drawing it. A grouped family card exports the whole family, every look in one file. A separate card exports the single look it shows, with the other looks and the group name stripped out, so the person you send it to gets one theme rather than a family with holes in it. Flip **Theme gallery style** if you want the other one; see [Theme families and looks](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/themes/families/). The exported file is the whole theme, written as plain JSON with no wrapper or format tag around it: colors, gradients and radii, but also the typeface, sound and key-texture choices the theme carries. Unlike a layout or settings export, a theme file identifies itself by its `.wmtheme.json` extension rather than by a marker inside. If the theme has a background image, the app reads that image off disk and embeds it as base64 instead of leaving behind a path that only exists on your device. The export is self-contained, so opening it on another phone doesn't mean re-picking the photo. A theme with no background image has empty image fields. There's no size limit on a local export, so a theme with a large background photo makes a correspondingly large file. ## Importing a theme There are three ways a theme gets imported, and they don't all behave the same way: two apply the theme immediately, one doesn't. Seven more buttons on the same row, **FlorisBoard**, **HeliBoard**, **FUTO**, **Multiling O**, **Kinetica**, **Clink** and **Gboard**, read someone else's format rather than this one, and **Screenshot** reads a picture. They're covered separately below. ### From the Import button Appearance / Keyboard themes The **Import** button, first of the row above the cards, opens a file picker scoped to JSON-ish files. It's intentionally permissive about the exact MIME type, since file providers report a `.json` file as `text/plain` or `application/octet-stream` about as often as they get it right. Pick a `.wmtheme.json` file and it's added to Your themes under a freshly generated ID. The ID stored inside the file itself is discarded, so importing the same file twice creates two separate custom themes rather than updating one in place. Any embedded background image is written back out to local storage as part of the import. Importing this way both adds the theme and switches the keyboard to it immediately: there's no separate confirmation step for "use it now." ### Several files at once Every import button that opens a file picker takes more than one file: **Import**, **FlorisBoard**, **FUTO**, **Kinetica**, **Clink**, **Gboard**, and **Open a file** under **HeliBoard** and **Multiling O**. Hold a file in the picker to start selecting, tick the rest, then confirm. The files are read one after another through the same reader a single file goes through, and the import ends on one message instead of a dialog per file: how many themes came in (*"The app imported 7 themes"*), then, under it, the names of any files that could not be read (*"The app could not read 1 file: notes.txt"*). A file that fails doesn't stop the ones after it. A batch saves without switching the keyboard to anything, even from the **Import** button, which applies a single file straight away. There's no theme in a batch you picked over the others, so the keyboard keeps what it's wearing until you tap a card. A Gboard file skips its preview in a batch, and an Rboard pack in the batch adds every theme inside it, the way **Add all** does. **Screenshot** isn't a batch import: the pictures it takes are views of one keyboard, read together into one theme. To send several themes the other way, long-press a card in Your themes, tick the others, and press the upload icon in the bar at the bottom. It saves one `.zip` holding a `.wmtheme.json` file per theme. **Import** takes that zip back as it is: every theme in it is added, none switched to, and one message counts them. Each file inside is an ordinary theme file, so one taken out of the zip by hand imports on its own too. ### By opening the file elsewhere Tapping a `.wmtheme.json` file in a file manager, or choosing "open with" on one from a chat app, hands it to a small confirmation dialog rather than dropping you into the settings app. It asks "Import *theme name*?" with the note that the theme is added to your themes and applied to the keyboard, then **Import** and **Cancel**. Confirming has the same immediate-apply effect as the in-app Import button: added to Your themes and switched on right away. A theme file carries no format tag, so the app recognizes one in two ways: by its `.wmtheme.json` name, or by the color fields every export writes. The second is what catches a theme whose name got lost on the way, as happens with files opened from Telegram and other chat apps or downloaded in a browser. A hand-written JSON file that leaves those fields out and isn't named `.wmtheme.json` won't be read as a theme; WM Keyboard offers to open it in its editor instead. The in-app Import button above isn't affected, since it doesn't check either. ### From an addon repository See [Addon repositories](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/development/addon-repos/) for how repositories work generally. Installing a theme from one behaves differently from the two file-based flows above: it's added to Your themes but not switched on automatically. Browsing a repository shouldn't repaint your keyboard behind your back, so after the install finishes you get a separate, dismissable prompt: "*Theme name* is installed", asking "Use it as your keyboard theme now?" with a **Switch to it** button and a **Not now** dismiss option. Declining leaves the theme sitting in Your themes, installed but not worn, until you tap it yourself. A theme listing in a repository also isn't previewable in the addon browser the way a dictionary or sticker pack is. You judge a theme by seeing the keyboard wearing it, which a static preview panel can't honestly show. Unlike a plugin, a theme's checksum in the repository manifest is optional rather than enforced, since a theme isn't executable code. A theme with no checksum installs exactly like one that has it, with no extra warning either way. ### From a FlorisBoard file The gallery's **FlorisBoard** button reads FlorisBoard's own `.flex` theme packages instead of `.wmtheme.json`, and converts every theme inside one into a custom theme here. A converted theme is saved without being switched on, so you can look at it before wearing it. You can open a `.flex` straight from a file manager too. A file that carries both a day and a night version becomes one theme with two looks rather than two entries. Both FlorisBoard style formats are read, the 0.4 one and the 0.5 one. What converts cleanly and what gets reported instead of guessed at are in [Importing other keyboards](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/reference/importing-other-keyboards/). ### From a HeliBoard or LeanType theme The **HeliBoard** button reads the colour themes those two keyboards share. They have no theme file at all: a theme is a line of JSON copied out of the menu at the top of their colour screen, which is why their themes circulate as forum posts. So the button asks where yours is, **Paste** or **Open a file**, and reads either. Both of that keyboard's export shapes work, the ten named colours and the forty-odd internal roles of its *all colours* mode. Like a FlorisBoard import, the theme is saved without being switched on, and the result message says how many of its colours landed. See [Importing other keyboards](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/reference/importing-other-keyboards/). ### From a Multiling O theme The **FUTO** button reads a FUTO Keyboard theme `.zip`, the hand-written `theme.txt` kind or one saved by FUTO's own theme editor, with its background picture and font. The theme is saved without being switched on, and the result message lists anything that did not come across, such as pictures drawn per key. A FUTO theme also opens from a file manager. See [Importing other keyboards](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/reference/importing-other-keyboards/#futo-keyboard-themes). The **Multiling O** button reads the colours of a Multiling O Keyboard theme. That keyboard shares a theme as a block of text from its settings export, starting with `OK_Settings_Begin`, or as a link with the block in it. The button asks for **Paste** or **Open a file**, the same as the HeliBoard one. The theme is saved without being switched on, and the result message says how many of its colours landed. See [Importing other keyboards](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/reference/importing-other-keyboards/#multiling-o-themes). ### From a Kinetica backup Kinetica has no theme file: its look is a handful of settings (where the colours come from, light or dark, one typed colour, key borders and the swipe trail), and they travel in its backup. So the **Kinetica** button opens a file picker for that backup, the `kinetica_backup_….txt` that **Backup**, then **Export a backup**, saves in Kinetica's settings. Only the theme is read out of it; the words and the rest stay where they are. The colours are worked out by Kinetica's own rules, so a typed colour spreads over the keys, the bar and the popups as it did there. A theme set to follow the phone's light or dark mode comes across as one theme with a dark and a light look, and Material You comes across as a theme that follows the wallpaper. The theme is saved without being switched on, and the result message says what did not come across: a rainbow trail takes the theme's colour, and keys that light up under a swipe aren't drawn. Kinetica leaves its background picture out of its backup, so the picture has to be added again in the theme editor. A Kinetica backup also opens from a file manager. See [Importing other keyboards](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/reference/importing-other-keyboards/#kinetica-themes). ### From a Clink theme The **Clink** button reads a `.clinktheme`, the file that **Export** in the theme menu of Clink (a keyboard for iPhone and iPad) saves, and the file its theme repositories publish. Newer versions of Clink wrap what **Export** saves in an encrypted package that only Clink opens. WM Keyboard recognises one and says so instead of importing it; the plain files Clink's theme repositories publish still import. The colours, gradients, key borders, shadows, key shape and bold labels come across, and a theme that switched with the phone's light and dark mode becomes one theme with a dark and a light look. The finish a Clink theme is drawn with (metal, stitched cloth, ceramic glaze, raised 3D caps, holographic foil and the rest) becomes the [key material](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/themes/editor/#key-material) of the same kind, and its moving background (snow, bokeh, embers, a nebula) the [moving background](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/themes/editor/#moving-background) of the same name. The theme is saved without being switched on. A `.clinktheme` also opens from a file manager, and a whole Clink theme repository can be added under Addons. See [Importing other keyboards](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/reference/importing-other-keyboards/#clink-themes). ### From a screenshot of a keyboard The **Screenshot** button makes a theme from a picture of a keyboard: yours, another app's, or one somebody posted. Pick an image that shows all the letter keys. It works on the phone, with nothing uploaded, and it isn't a trained model: it finds the key grid and measures what it sees. It reads the board (one color, a gradient, or a photo rebuilt from what shows around the keys), the key, modifier and enter colors, translucent keys, the key shape and corner radius, borders, key shadows, a sheen or texture on the keys, label and hint colors, the bars above and below the keys, and tool backgrounds. A key with a color of its own keeps it, as long as the rows follow QWERTY. A font and the icons on the keys can't be copied, and neither can frosted glass, which shows up as a plain translucent color. Keys that don't look like the rest get their own entry: a pill enter key or space bar on a board of rounded keys, a different color on shift, delete, the mode key, the comma or a single letter. On a board with no key backgrounds at all, the keys that do have one still come out as shapes. You can pick up to three screenshots of the same keyboard. Letters and symbols have different labels, so what one label hides another shows, and a photo behind the keys comes back cleaner. If the keys can't be found, or the copy doesn't match the picture, the letters read by the Paddle text scan model say where the keys are, when that model is already on the phone. It isn't downloaded just for this. The dialog shows a preview before anything is saved, and a warning if the theme redrawn over the picture doesn't match it closely. A small picture gets a note too, since thin lines and small labels are lost in it. Key shape and key opacity can be corrected right there before you save. A screenshot with a busy photo behind translucent keys is the hardest case, so check that kind first. Like the other conversions, the theme is saved without being switched on. **Also copy the sizes** takes the proportions from the picture too, off by default. Key height, gaps, side padding, toolbar height, label size and weight are pinned on the theme, so they leave when you pick another theme. Whether the number row shows, its height, the bottom row's height and the space under the keys are your global settings, and the option changes them. Sizes are worked out for this phone's screen from the proportions of the key grid, so a picture from a tablet gives the same look at this width. A landscape screenshot has no portrait height to offer, so the option isn't shown for one. The reader is in the same library as the built-in document scanner, so the button offers that download the first time on a build that doesn't carry it. ### From a Gboard theme or the Rboard collection The **Gboard** button asks where the theme is. **Open a file** reads a Gboard theme `.zip`: the file Gboard itself exports, and the format the Rboard community shares hundreds of themes in. A ZIP that holds several themes (an Rboard *pack*) lists them so you can pick one, or **Add all**. **Browse Rboard** opens a list of the packs in the Rboard repository on GitHub; the list is fetched only when you open that screen, and a pack only when you press it. The Google Play build has no Browse Rboard, so there the button opens the file picker straight away. Every theme ends on a dialog with a preview, the count of style rules that came across, and a line for each thing that could not. Like the other two conversions, a theme is saved without being switched on. Gboard draws a theme with or without key borders, and a theme that ships both becomes one theme with two looks. You can also open a Gboard theme or an Rboard pack straight from a file manager. See [Importing other keyboards](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/reference/importing-other-keyboards/#gboard-themes-and-rboard-packs). ## Publishing a theme The quickest way to share a theme with everyone is the globe icon on its card, which sends it to the community addon repository through a GitHub issue. See [Sharing with everyone](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/addons/community/). To run a repository of your own instead, publishing requires no extra packaging. A repository serves the exact `.wmtheme.json` file the Export button produces. Export the theme. Drop the file into your repository's `themes/` folder. Reference it from the repository manifest. See [Addon repository format](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/development/addon-repos/repo-format/) for the manifest shape and a worked theme entry. ## Details and edge cases - **No limit on custom themes.** Unlike sticker packs or plugins, there's no cap on how many themes you can import or create, and none on how many files one batch import takes. - **Re-importing a file always creates a new theme.** Because the ID inside the file is discarded on import, editing a file externally and re-importing it adds another entry rather than replacing the original; delete the old one yourself if you don't want both. - **Deleting the active theme falls back to Default.** If you delete a custom theme that's currently applied, the keyboard falls back to the Default (system) theme. Its background image files stay on disk for now: two themes can share an image file, so only a later housekeeping pass removes the ones nothing points at any more, and only once they've gone a full day unreferenced. - **Import and export work the same in every build.** There's no feature gap between builds for exporting, importing, or installing themes from a repository. - **A background image travels with every export**, portrait and landscape both, so restoring a theme on a new device doesn't require re-picking either photo. See [Image backgrounds](https://wmkeyboard.pages.dev/themes/backgrounds/) for how those images are set in the first place.