Can You Customize Apple Music? Themes, Colors & Icons
Updated October 2, 2026 · Marquee Guides
Quick answer
Not in Apple’s app — the Music app only follows the system light/dark mode. To theme your Apple Music experience, use Marquee: a free player for Apple Music with unlimited custom color themes, five alternate app icons, and widgets that match your theme.
Search "how to change Apple Music colors" and every answer says the same thing: you can’t. The Music app follows your iPhone’s system-wide light or dark mode, and that’s the extent of it.
But "you can’t theme the Music app" doesn’t mean you can’t theme your music. Here’s how to get a fully customized Apple Music experience.
What Apple’s Music app allows
The stock Music app offers exactly two looks: light and dark, controlled in Settings → Display & Brightness for the whole phone. There are no accent colors, no custom themes, and no alternate app icons. The only visual flourish is the Apple Music Now Playing screen tinting its background from the album art.
How to turn on Apple Music dark mode
The Music app has no dark mode switch of its own. It follows your iPhone’s appearance, so dark mode for Apple Music means dark mode for the whole phone:
- Open Settings and tap Display & Brightness.
- Choose Dark, or turn on Automatic to switch at sunset.
- For a faster toggle, long-press the brightness slider in Control Center and tap Dark Mode.
If you want your music player dark while the rest of your phone stays light, a third-party player can do it. Marquee’s free Theatre and Dark themes give the player its own dark background, whatever your iPhone is set to.
Can you change the Apple Music app icon?
Not directly. Apple Music has no alternate icons. iOS can tint every home screen icon at once (touch and hold the home screen, tap Edit, then Customize), and some people use a Shortcuts automation to open Music from a custom icon, but both are workarounds. With Marquee Pro, Marquee has five alternate app icons — Granny, Rose, Purple, Green, and Black — that you pick right in the app.
Theme everything with Marquee
Marquee is a player built on your real Apple Music library — same music, same playlists — with an interface designed to be made yours. It ships with three free themes (Theatre, Light, and Dark), three more built-ins with Pro (Fall, Ocean Breeze, and Forest Green), and a theme editor where you pick your own primary and background colors and the entire app adapts — the player, the library, even your home screen widgets follow your palette. Prefer a matching home screen? Choose from five alternate app icons: Granny, Rose, Purple, Green, and Black.
- Download Marquee free from the App Store and connect Apple Music.
- Go to the Customize tab and open Themes & Appearance.
- Pick a theme — or tap Create Custom Theme with Marquee Pro and choose your own colors with a live preview.
- Back in Customize, pick an App Icon that matches, and add a themed widget so your setup carries through to the home screen.
With Marquee Pro, finish the look with a player style for Now Playing, like the Vinyl turntable or the Cassette tape deck.
Try it with Marquee — free
The Apple Music player with themes, Last.fm scrobbling, Library Insights, and Upcoming Releases tracking. Requires an Apple Music subscription.
Frequently asked questions
Does Apple Music have a dark mode?
Yes, but only through your iPhone’s system setting. Turn on Dark in Settings → Display & Brightness and the Music app follows. There’s no separate dark mode inside the Music app.
Can I change the Apple Music app icon?
Apple Music has no alternate icons. You can tint all your icons in iOS’s home screen Customize menu, or use Marquee, which has five alternate app icons with Marquee Pro.
Are custom themes free?
Theatre, Light, and Dark themes are free. The premium built-in themes, unlimited custom color themes, and the five alternate app icons are part of Marquee Pro, with a free trial to start.