How to change background color in the Notepad++ text editor?

Go to Settings -> Style Configurator

Select Theme: Choose whichever you like best (the top two are easiest to read by most people's preference)

---

You may need admin access to do it on your system.

Create a folder 'themes' in the Notepad++ installation folder i.e. C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++ Search or visit pages like http://timtrott.co.uk/notepad-colour-schemes/ to download the favourite theme. It will be an XML file. Note: I prefer Neon any day. Download the themes from the site and drag them to the themes folder. Note: I was unable to copy-paste or create new files in 'themes' folder so I used drag and that worked. Follow the steps provided by @triforceofcourage to select the new theme in Notepad++ preferences.

---

There seems to have been an update some time in the past 3 years which changes the location of where to place themes in order to get them working.

Previosuly, themes were located in the Notepad++ installation folder. Now they are located in AppData:

C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\themes

My answer is an update to @Amit-IO's answer about manually copying the themes.

In Explorer, browse to: %AppData%\Notepad++. If a folder called themes does not exist, create it. Download your favourite theme from wherever (see Amit-IO's answer for a good list) and save it to %AppData%\Notepad++\themes. Restart Notepad++ and then use Settings -> Style Configurator. The new theme(s) will appear in the list.

---

From version v8 released 2021-06-07 Notepad++ has additional Dark Mode option.

To enable it go to Settings -> Preferences -> Enable dark mode

https://i.stack.imgur.com/Pzq7i.png

Effect:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/3TJlq.png

Next step: Go to Settings -> Style Configurator

Select Theme: Choose whichever you like best (over half of styles here are dark, but each is different).

Hint: click on theme list and use keyboard arrows 🔼 and 🔽 to switch between themes and test all of them.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/q7aQg.png

Effect after all steps (Obsydian theme here):

https://i.stack.imgur.com/DrhL1.png

---

If anyone wants to enable dark mode, you may follow the below steps

Open your Notepad++, and select “Settings” on the menu bar, and choose “Style configurator”.

Select theme “Obsidian” (you can choose other dark themes)

Click on Save&Colse

https://i.stack.imgur.com/9KeL3.png

---

Notepad++ changed in the past couple of years, and it requires a few extra steps to set up a dark theme.

The answer by Amit-IO is good, but the example theme that is needed has stopped being maintained. The DraculaTheme is active. Just download the XML and put it in a themes folder. You may need Admin access in Windows.

C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\themes

https://draculatheme.com/notepad-plus-plus

---

I have just installed the latest version Notepad++ website (currently it is v8.1) which provides an explicit dark mode setting. Go to "Setting" -> "Preferences..." -> "Dark Mode" -> check the "Enable dark mode" tick box. The editor might need to be restarted to take effect completely. https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/

---

If you are not able to add the theme , a workaround is that go to

USER/Appdata/LocalRoaming/Notepad++

make sure you save whatever the data is there in stylers.xml as back up before

There you will find a stylers.xml you can edit that only , with any xml format you need. ( https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dracula/notepad-plus-plus/master/Dracula.xml )

Sometimes even after adding the file , notepadd++ doesn't pick up the theme To revert back just edit back stylers.xml with the backup file.

After restarting it , you can see notepad ++ has taken that style as default

---