2013-08-01

As you may have noticed the link to change the look of the SharePoint 2013 and Office 365 My Sites has been removed. This is most certain for a reason and one of these is that choosing one of the other looks (masterpages) removes the image in the top left corner of the page.

Please be aware that this is most likely not supported by Microsoft,
but this method can be used to restore the MySite look to it’s default
-if you changed it by “accident”…. like me

I will demonstrate how you can make a new “Composed Look” that points to the correct MySite15.master masterpage and let you choose the colors.

Okay, let’s start.

  • Go to the Site Settings and click the “Composed Looks”

 

Here you will see all the default combinations, and all of these refers to the default masterpages that is NOT made for My Sites. You can also see the other default settings for these looks. You need to add a new look that is pointing to the mysite15.master page and a spcolor-file as a minimum.

  • Click “New Item” and fill out the following:

Now you need to create a preview file for your My Site masterpage, as the element will not show up in the design gallery.

  • Go back to “Site Settings” and choose “Masterpages”.

 

  • Click on the arrow next to the seatle.master and choose “Download a Copy”

  • Rename your downloaded file to: mysite15.preview

Note: The name must be identical of the masterpage you are going to show in the gallery – in this case the masterpage filename is mysite15.master

  • Upload your renamed file to the masterpages. Please make sure the file is checked in and published as a major version, or non-admins cannot use it.
  • Go to the hidden design gallery by adding the following to your mysite root-URL: /_layouts/15/designgallery.aspx

  • Choose your new composed look and change the colorscheme and background if you want. Don’t mind the “incorrect” preview here, as it was a copy of the seatle preview file.
  • Click “Try it out” and afterwards “Yes, keep it”.

Now you should have your My Site “back” and with the new colors.

About the author 

Jesper M. Christensen