Chrome prepares distinct Themes for Local and Google Account Profiles based on Sync Status

Google is making an important change to the way themes in Chrome appear across devices when signed in and when sync is turned off.

At present, when you sync Chrome settings across devices, your theme is also included. This means that if you change your theme on one device, it will be automatically applied to all synced devices.

However, this can be inconvenient if you prefer different themes on different devices.
Google is now considering this and is working to allow users to have separate themes for their local profile and Google Account.

Chrome to Keep themes separate for local and Google Accounts

A local theme applied to your Chrome browser on a specific device remains unchanged unless you manually change it. Similarly, an account theme is the theme associated with your Google account. It syncs across all devices where you are signed in with the same account.

When you turn off sync, the account theme will be removed, and the local theme will be restored. This ensures that your local theme preferences are preserved even if you stop syncing your account.

Soon there will be a flag named SeparateLocalAndAccountThemes for users to test in Chrome Canary. When enabled, it “keeps the local and the account theme separate if sync is turned off”. The commit message spotted by us reveals this.

This change will allow users to personalize their browsing experience by using different themes on different devices.”. Local themes will remain consistent on a device, even if the account theme changes or sync is turned off. Users can modify themes on their local devices without affecting the theme on other devices.

Managing two sets of themes might be confusing for some users. Let us hope that Chrome may offer a setting or something for users to manage the theme separation feature they are working on for local and account profiles.

In addition to separating themes for local and Google Account, Chrome will allow extensions to collect data for AI improvements. Additionally, Chrome is adding Windows 11 24H2 support addressing video frame rate drops in multi-monitor setups.