How to change the administration theme in Drupal 7

Drupal 7 is extremely versatile and has many customization features. In addition to the themes your site visitors see, Drupal allows you to change the look and feel of your admin dashboard by setting a separate theme just for it. By having a separate theme for the admin section it allows you to distinguish between the administrative section of  your website and the actual website easily.

  1. Log into your Drupal 7 dashboard
  2. Go to the Appearance  menu item at the top menu bar and click it.
  3. drupal_admin_theme_1

  4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and find the section called Administration Theme
  5. Select the theme you wish to use through the drop down menu
  6. drupal_admin_theme_2

  7. Click Save Configuration to save your chosen admin theme. Below you can see an example of how changing the admin theme affects your dashboard.

    BeforeAfter
    appearance-admin-theme-before

    appearance-admin-theme-after

If you need further assistance please feel free to ask a question on our support center.

Carrie Smaha
Carrie Smaha Senior Manager Marketing Operations

Carrie enjoys working on demand generation and product marketing projects that tap into multi-touch campaign design, technical SEO, content marketing, software design, and business operations.

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