# Cursor Themes

There are many cursor themes available besides the default black pointer.

## Getting mouse cursor themes

Check which themes are already installed:

    ls /usr/share/icons/*

Search for `cursors` subdirectories:

    find /usr/share/icons -type d -iname "*cursors*"

Note: The xcursor-themes package comes with the 'redglass' and 'whiteglass' themes in `/usr/share/icons`.

The official repositories (search "xcursor-") and AUR (search cursor) have more cursor themes available. Other sources include:

- KDE Look
- Customize.org

## Manually installing mouse cursor themes

This is only required when not using pacman to install themes.

Extract the cursor theme package:

    $ tar -zxvf foobar-cursor-theme-package-foo.tar.gz

or

    $ tar -jxvf foobar-cursor-theme-package-foo.tar.bz2

Make a directory for the cursor theme:

Example: FooBar-AweSoMe-Cursors-v2.98beta

User-specific installation:

    $ mkdir -p ~/.icons/foobar/cursors
    $ cp -a FooBar-AweSoMe-Cursors-v2.98beta/cursors/* ~/.icons/foobar/cursors/

System-wide installation:

    # mkdir -p /usr/share/icons/foobar/cursors
    # cp -a FooBar-AweSoMe-Cursors-v2.98beta/cursors/* /usr/share/icons/foobar/cursors/

Note: To simplify the name of the theme, the name being used is 'foobar' instead of 'FooBar-AweSoMe-Cursors-v2.98beta' when creating the dir(s) above.

If the package includes an index.theme file, check if there is an "Inherits" line inside. If yes, check whether the inherited theme also exists under this name in your system (rename if needed). Then copy the index.theme file:

User-specific installation:

    $ cp -a FooBar-AweSoMe-Cursors-v2.98beta/index.theme ~/.icons/foobar/index.theme

System-wide installation:

    # cp -a FooBar-AweSoMe-Cursors-v2.98beta/index.theme /usr/share/icons/foobar/index.theme

### Create links to missing cursors

Applications may keep using the default cursors when a theme lacks some cursors. This can be corrected by adding links to the missing cursors. For example:

    $ cd ~/.icons/foobar/cursors/
    $ ln -s right_ptr arrow
    $ ln -s cross crosshair
    $ ln -s right_ptr draft_large
    $ ln -s right_ptr draft_small
    $ ln -s cross plus
    $ ln -s left_ptr top_left_arrow
    $ ln -s cross tcross
    $ ln -s hand hand1
    $ ln -s hand hand2
    $ ln -s left_side left_tee
    $ ln -s left_ptr ul_angle
    $ ln -s left_ptr ur_angle
    $ ln -s left_ptr_watch 08e8e1c95fe2fc01f976f1e063a24ccd

If the above does not solve the problem, look in `/usr/share/icons/whiteglass/cursors` for additional cursors your theme may be missing, and create links for these as well.

Tip: You can also remove unwanted cursors. To for example remove the "watch" cursor:

    $ cd ~/.icons/foobar/cursors/
    $ rm watch left_ptr_watch
    $ ln -s left_ptr watch
    $ ln -s left_ptr left_ptr_watch

## Choosing and configuring cursor themes

If you use some desktop environment like Gnome, you can use its GUIs to choose cursor themes. Alternatively you can use lxappearance to manage and apply cursor themes.

### Using the XDG Icon theme specification

Note:

- This will set both the X11 and Wayland cursor theme.
- Even if you are using a tool such as lxappearance or dconf-editor to set the cursor theme, it is recommended that you create an `index.theme` file as well otherwise cursor themes will not be consistent systemwide and across all applications.

#### Using an index.theme file (recommended)

Create the following file (you may also need to create the directory):

    /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme

    [icon theme]
    Inherits=my-cursor-theme

Tip: If your cursor theme is installed in `~/.icons` you can create the `index.theme` file in the `~/.icons/default/` directory instead.

#### Using a symlink

Create a symlink named "default" in `~/.icons`, which points to your installed cursor theme:

    $ ln -s /usr/share/icons/my-cursor-theme/ ~/.icons/default

Note: This method will not set the cursor theme used in display managers and it may not set the cursor theme consistently across all applications. It is highly recommended that users create an index.theme instead, as described in the subsection above.

### GNOME 3.8 and above

To change the cursor theme with GNOME 3.8 and above, run the following command:

    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme my-cursor-theme

Use the `dconf-editor` if you do not wish to issue a command.

Tip: For cursor theme consistency across all applications, you may need to create an `index.theme` file as described above.

#### GDM

GDM disregards GNOME cursor theme settings and it also ignores the cursor theme set according to the XDG Icon theme specification - see above. To change the cursor theme used in GDM, you must create the following file:

    /etc/dconf/db/gdm.d/10-cursor-settings

    [org/gnome/desktop/interface]
    cursor-theme='my-cursor-theme'

Then run the following command as root:

    # dconf update

### Using X resources

To locally name a cursor theme, add to your `~/.Xresources`:

    Xcursor.theme: my-cursor-theme

To have the cursor theme properly loaded it will need to be called by your window manager. If it does not, you can force it to load prior your window manager by putting the following command in `~/.xinitrc` or .xprofile (depending on your setup):

    $ xrdb ~/.Xresources &

You can optionally add this line to `~/.Xresources` if your cursor theme supports multiple sizes:

    Xcursor.size:  16       !  32, 48 or 64 may also be good values

If you do not know about supported cursor sizes, start X without this setting and let it choose the cursor size automatically.

Refer to your window manager documentation for details.

## Troubleshooting

### Awesome window manager

Xcursor does not work correctly with awesome window manager. You may notice all of the themed cursors work except the default cursor.

For more information see Awesome wiki.

## See also

For more information about cursors in X (supported directories, formats, compatibility, etc.) refer to `man Xcursor`.

Category:

- X Server