Desktop themes were first introduced with Windows 7, and the feature is part of the latest Windows 10 as well. A desktop theme generally includes one or more wallpapers. Besides that, a desktop theme might also contain sound schemes, icons, screensavers, and window color scheme.
There are hundreds of beautiful themes available to download from Windows Store as well as the official Windows personalization gallery. You will find plenty of excellent quality third-party themes as well.
One can find all installed themes in Windows 10 by navigating to Settings > Personalization > Themes page. The Themes page lists all themes, including built-in themes.
As you might have noticed, when you right-click on a theme on the Themes page, it offers you only the Delete option to delete the selected theme. There is no option out there to save a theme. You might want to save a downloaded theme (a theme installed from Store) or might want to save only the wallpapers from a theme.
Users who download themes from the Microsoft personalization gallery or third-party websites won’t come across this situation as they first download the themes before applying it. If you want to extract the desktop backgrounds from a theme file, please go through the directions in our how to extract wallpapers from Windows 10 theme guide.
If you are looking to save a theme or want to save wallpapers from a theme file, you can follow the given below directions.
Tip: How to change themes in Windows 11 guide might also interest you.
Method 1 of 2
Location of installed themes in Windows 10
Step 1: Open the Run command box, copy, and paste the following path in the box.
%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Themes
Press the Enter key to open the Themes folder.
Step 2: The Themes folder contains all installed themes. You can double-click on a theme’s folder to see the desktop theme file as well as the Desktop Background folder which includes all the wallpapers of that theme.
You may double-click on the desktop theme file to apply the theme.
If you want to backup or save a theme, copy the themes folder. Paste the theme’s folder in the %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Themes folder on any Windows 10 PC and then double-click on the desktop theme file located within the folder to apply the theme.
Method 2 of 2
Save an installed theme in Windows 10
Step 1: Navigate to Settings > Personalization > Themes.
Step 2: Apply the theme that you want to save by clicking on it. Make sure that the theme is applied.
Step 3: Click on the Color icon and change the default color to something else and then select the original color again.
Step 4: Now, you should get the Save theme for sharing option when you right-click on that theme.
Our how to install and delete a theme in Windows 10 guide might also interest you.
Tai Tran says
Worked like a charm, thank you!!!
Richard Lau says
Very well. Can follow step by step and have my new themes running now!
Jan says
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad that came with Windows 10. My %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Themes folder has no “Roamed” and no “OEM” folder. I don’t know if that is significant, but I am unable to re-install themes from the MS store that I long ago deleted in Settings>Personalization>Themes. It says I already “own” them and “installed.” I cannot find them to add to my list in Settings>Personalization>Themes again.
Thus, all of these tutorials and help posts do not work for me. :-(
Any thoughts?
CmdrK says
Thanks for including %localappdata% — there’s too many news outlets and blogs that don’t seem to know this environment variable exists, so they spend 3 paragraphs of every post talking about how to replace your system drive letter and user folder name, which may or may not be your username, with the proper values.