Customization has been one of the greatest features of Android. And if you’ve ever used a custom ROM like CyanogenMod, you’d know how much refreshing your Android devices can be with a powerful theme engine like CM theme engine. But if we told you, you can take benefits of a more robust theme engine than of CM and that too without a custom ROM? Yes, we’re talking the Substratum theme engine.

Developed upon Sony’s own theme engine, Substratum allows you to theme any Android device running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow and above Android versions (Yes, Nougat is supported).

Although, custom ROMs with support for Substratum makes it much more integrated and easy to use but stock Android ROMs can rock substratum pretty great too.

To start using Substratum, you need to make sure that your Android device is rooted. Substratum can’t apply overlay themes on your stock Android device unless you’ve root access on it.

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How to Install and Use Substratum on Android

  1. Download Substratum from Play Store, open it on your Android device and grant it root access.
  2. Open Play Store » search for “Substratum themes” » and download a few on your device.
  3. Open Substratum app, select the theme you want to apply.
  4. Touch the toggle button to select all overlays included in the theme at once OR select each overlay manually (if you don’t want to apply all overlays).
  5. Scroll down a little, you’ll see a floating button (with Paintbrush icon), tap on it and select Install Selected.
  6. If your custom ROM has support for Substratum, then all overlays will be applied without a reboot. If not, then the app will ask you to reboot the device to apply selected overlays/theme.

How to Get Back to Stock System Theme using Substratum

At any point, if you wish to revert back to the original stock theme of your device, Substratum has a simple option to let you do so in a single action.

  1. Open Substratum app.
  2. Touch the hamburger menu (in top-left corner).
  3. Select Defaults Manager option.
  4. Select Restore System Theme.
  5. If it asks for a reboot, let it do so.

Enjoy theming your Android device with Substratum theme engine. Cheers!