[FEATURE] Add eye-friendly light background presets to the desktop app (accessibility request)

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

I use the Claude desktop app for many hours every day, and my eyesight isn't strong. The Light theme's pure-white background is very bright, and staring at it for long stretches causes real eye fatigue and discomfort. Dark mode isn't a reliable fallback either: in a bright room, light text on a dark background produces its own glare and reading strain.

Right now Appearance only offers Light, Dark, and Match System — there is no lower-brightness, warm-toned option in between. For users who work long sessions, and for anyone with visual sensitivity, that gap is an accessibility problem, not just a cosmetic preference. It directly limits how long I can comfortably work in the app.

Proposed Solution

Add a small set of eye-friendly light presets to Settings → Appearance → Color mode, alongside the existing Light / Dark / Match System options. A two-phase approach keeps it low-cost:

Phase 1 (priority, minimal effort): 2–4 curated low-brightness presets — for example warm grey, sepia/cream, and a soft green. Since the app already themes its UI (presumably via CSS variables / design tokens), this should mostly be swapping a few background values rather than new architecture.

Phase 2 (optional, later): a background-color picker, or a custom theme file (CSS variables / JSON), for users who want to fine-tune.

Shipping only the Phase 1 presets would already meaningfully help a large group of long-session and visually-sensitive users at very low engineering cost.

Alternative Solutions

I've tried the existing options and none solve it: Dark mode is too harsh in bright environments; the macOS system light/dark toggle only gives the same two extremes; and third-party theming extensions are unofficial, fragile, and tend to break across app updates.

A prior request for custom background color (#63020) was closed as not planned. I'm re-raising this specifically from an accessibility angle, and with a lower-cost, preset-based proposal rather than a full color picker, in the hope it's easier to prioritize.

Priority

High - Significant impact on productivity

Feature Category

Configuration and settings

Use Case Example

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Additional Context

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