Correct scaling factor Retina displays - Arch Hyprland

How to set up correct scaling in retina displays with hyprland and arch linux.

Correct scaling factor Retina displays - Arch Hyprland
Photo by Kenny Kuo / Unsplash

This really short post is to show you how to set up correctly the scaling factor for retina displays (like mine Macbook pro late 2025) with Arch linux and hyprland.

Update hyprland.conf

Scales Qt apps by 130% with below config in your hyprland.conf

env = QT_SCALE_FACTOR,1.3

environment variable QT_SCALE_FACTOR set to 1.3 in hyprland.conf

above's config works perfectly for qt apps (firefox, thunderbird)

Electron Apps

as Slack installed via flatpak you could update the zoom with CTRL + (plus) + or Decrease the zoom with CTRL + (less) - keys and the settings will remain trough sessions.

Note

I didn't need of this but worth to know there are some environment variables for both GTK and QT apps:

🗒️ Updated summary of environment variables

Component Config / Command Purpose Current/Expected Value
Hyprland monitor=desc:Apple Computer Inc Color LCD,2560x1600@60,auto,1 Base resolution (no compositor scaling)
Qt Apps env = QT_SCALE_FACTOR,1.3 Scale KDE/Qt apps
GTK Apps env = GDK_SCALE,1 + env = GDK_DPI_SCALE,1.3 Scale GTK/Firefox/Thunderbird
Electron Apps Inherit GTK scaling under Wayland Slack, VS Code, etc.
gsettings value org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor Only affects GNOME session 1.0