I have seen other tickets related to this, and have followed recommended steps. I have not been able to see new custom theme in admin section. Here the steps I have done: 1. I have created folder structure under 'Magento root'/vendor/myvendor/mytheme/ [![Folders structure][1]][1] [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/VIooZ.jpg . 2. Then I have added file: 'theme_dir'/theme.xml > <theme xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:Config/etc/theme.xsd"> > <title>My Theme</title> <!-- your theme's name --> > <parent>Magento/blank</parent> <!-- the parent theme, in case your theme inherits from an existing theme --> > <media> > <preview_image>media/preview.jpg</preview_image> <!-- the path to your theme's preview image --> > </media> > </theme> . 3. Then I have added file: 'theme_dir'/composer.json > { > "name": "myvendor/theme-frontend-mytheme", > "description": "N/A", > "require": { > "php": "~5.5.0|~5.6.0|~7.0.0", > "magento/theme-frontend-blank": "100.0.*", > "magento/framework": "100.0.*" > }, > "type": "magento2-theme", > "version": "100.0.1", > "license": [ > "OSL-3.0", > "AFL-3.0" > ], > "autoload": { > "files": [ > "registration.php" > ] > } } . 4. Then I have added file: 'theme_dir'/registration.php : <?php /** * Copyright © 2016 Magento. All rights reserved. * See COPYING.txt for license details. */ \Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar::register( \Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar::THEME, 'frontend/myvendor/mytheme', __DIR__ ); . 5. Then I updated '<Magento root>'/dev/tools/grunt/configs/themes.js - just below luma: luma: { area: 'frontend', name: 'Magento/luma', locale: 'en_US', files: [ 'css/styles-m', 'css/styles-l' ], dsl: 'less' }, my_theme: { area: 'frontend', name: 'myvendor/mytheme', locale: 'en_US', files: [ 'css/styles-m', 'css/styles-l' ], dsl: 'less' }, . 6. Then deleted var from root 7. Then I flushed cache 8. Then I ran from CLI - in this step the new theme was not shown in logs: magento setup:static-content:deploy 9. Then when I go to Admin/Content/Themes and I am not able to find new theme.