How to change the default WordPress user admin color theme

As part of an effort to clean up the WordPress admin area for our authors at work we started removing elements from the dashboard they don’t need or want in an effort to make it less distracting for them. As well as removing text and unnecessary menus we also decided to change from the default dark grey theme to a light grey which we thought would fit better with our branding.

Force users to use a certain admin color theme

Add this to your theme’s functions.php. For every user it will force them to use the light theme.

/**
 * Force contributors to use the light colour scheme
 *
 * @param  string $result
 * @return string
 */
function oz_change_admin_color( $result ) {
	return 'light';
}
add_filter( 'get_user_option_admin_color', 'oz_change_admin_color' );

The complete list of default WordPress admin color themes is: default, light, blue, coffee, ectoplasm, midnight, ocean, sunrise.