Skip to content

GitLab Appearance

DETAILS: Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: Self-managed

You can update your settings to change the look and feel of your GitLab self-managed instance.

To open the Appearance settings:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.

Customize your homepage button

Customize the appearance of your Homepage button.

The Homepage button is located on the upper-left corner of the left sidebar. Replace the default GitLab logo {tanuki} with any image.

  • The file should be less than 1 MB.
  • The image should be 24 pixels high. Images more than 24 px high will be resized.

To customize your Homepage icon image:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.
  3. Under Navigation bar, select Choose file.
  4. At the bottom of the page, select Update appearance settings.

Pipeline status emails also show your custom logo. However, some email applications do not support SVG images. If your custom image is in SVG format, pipeline emails show the default logo.

Customize the favicon

Customize the appearance of the favicon. A favicon is the icon for a website that shows in your browser tabs. The GitLab logo {tanuki} is the default browser and CI/CD status favicon. Replace the default icon with any image that is 32 x 32 pixels and in .png or .ico format.

To change the favicon:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.
  3. Under Favicon, select Choose file.
  4. At the bottom of the page, select Update appearance settings.

Add system header and footer messages

  • Enable header and footer in emails checkbox introduced in GitLab 15.9.

Add a small header message, a small footer message, or both, to the interface of your GitLab instance. These messages show on all projects and pages of the instance, such as the sign-in and register pages.

  • You can italicize, bold, or add links to your message with Markdown.
  • Markdown lists, images, and quotes are not supported because system messages must be a single line.

To add a system header, footer message, or both:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.
  3. Go to the System header and footer section.
  4. Complete the fields.
  5. Optional. Select the Enable header and footer in emails checkbox. Add your system messages to all emails sent by your GitLab instance.
  6. At the bottom of the page, select Update appearance settings.

By default, the system header and footer text is white text on an orange background. To customize the message colors:

  • Go to the System header and footer section and select Customize colors.

Customize your sign-in and register pages

Customize the title, description, and logo on the sign-in and register page. By default, the register page logo is located on the left of the page, between the title and the description.

To customize your sign-in and register page titles or descriptions:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.
  3. Go to the Sign in/Sign up pages section.
  4. Complete the fields. You can format the page Title and Description with Markdown.
  5. At the bottom of the page, select Update appearance settings.

To customize the logo on your sign-in and register pages:

  • The file should be less than 1 MB.
  • The image should be 128 pixels high. Images more than 128 px high will be resized.
  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.
  3. Go to the Sign in/Sign up pages section.
  4. Under Logo, select Choose file.
  5. At the bottom of the page, select Update appearance settings.

You can add also add a customized help message below the sign-in message or add a sign-in text message.

Disable cookie-based language selector

FLAG: On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is not available. To make it available, an administrator can enable the feature flag named disable_preferred_language_cookie. On GitLab.com and GitLab Dedicated, this feature is not available.

You can remove the cookie-based language selector from the footer of the sign-in and register pages by enabling the disable_preferred_language_cookie feature flag.

Customize the Progressive Web App

Customize the icon, display name, short name, and description for your Progessive Web App (PWA). For more information, see Progressive Web App.

To add a Progressive Web App name and short name:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.
  3. Go to the Progressive Web App (PWA) section.
  4. Complete the fields.
    • Name is the display name of your PWA.
    • Short name shows on mobile devices and small screens.
  5. At the bottom of the page, select Update appearance settings.

To add a Progressive Web App description:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.
  3. Go to the Progressive Web App (PWA) section.
  4. Complete the fields. You can format the Description with Markdown.
  5. At the bottom of the page, select Update appearance settings.

To customize your Progressive Web App icon:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.
  3. Go to the Progressive Web App (PWA) section.
  4. Under Icon, select Choose file.
  5. At the bottom of the page, select Update appearance settings.

Member guidelines

You can add member guidelines to the group and project member pages in GitLab. You can use Markdown in the description.

The member guidelines are visible to users who have the permission to manage either:

  • Group members at the group level.
  • Project members at the project level.

You should add member guidelines if you manage group and project membership using either:

  • Predefined groups instead of on an individual basis.
  • External tooling.

Add guidelines to the new project page

Add a guideline message to the New project page. You can format your message with Markdown. The guideline message shows under the New Project message and, on the left side of the New project page.

To add a guideline message to the New project page:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.
  3. Go to the New project pages section.
  4. Complete the fields. You can format your guidelines with Markdown.

Add profile image guidelines

Add guidelines for profile images.

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Settings > Appearance.
  3. Go to the Profile image guideline section.
  4. Complete the fields. You can format your text with Markdown.

Libravatar

GitLab supports Libravatar is for avatar images, but you must manually enable Libravatar support on the GitLab instance. For more information, see Libravatar to use the service.