Google Chrome is by far the world’s most popular web browser. But with that, users have grown to have certain expectations. One of those is a dark mode. The idea of dark mode is that it makes the screen easier on your eyes in a low- or no-light setting. Of course, there are still some questions about the extent to which dark themes are really better for your eyes, but it’s certainly useful in certain circumstances.
There are a few different ways to enable dark mode in Chrome, though weirdly it’s not quite as simple and obvious as it should be. Here’s how to do it.
Enable Chrome Dark Mode in Desktop
Whether you’re using Windows or macOS, the simplest – though not most effective – way of enabling dark mode in Google Chrome is to do it through your desktop. Note that this method will enable dark mode in all windows on your computer, not just Chrome, and it will only change the Chrome window into dark mode, not actual online content. But it’s a start.
In Windows 11, right-click the desktop background and click Personalise. In the Personalisation window, click “Colors” then “Choose your mode” and select “Dark” from the dropdown menu.
To do this in Windows 10, right-click the desktop background and click Personalise. Then click “Colors” and change the “default app mode” to Dark.
In macOS, got to “System Preferences -> General -> Appearance” and click the Dark option.
Enable Chrome Dark Mode in Flags
The previous option has its limitations. Within Windows apps it may invert all the blacks and whites, but it doesn’t change the actual content of websites you’ll be browsing. To convert the contents of every website you visit into dark mode, you’ll need to go into Chrome Flags (note that this method also works for the Android version of Chrome).
In the Chrome address bar, type chrome://flags then in the “Search flags” window, type “dark mode”.
From the options that appear, click the dropdown next to “Auto Dark Mode for Web Contents”, click Enabled, then relaunch your browser.
Enable Chrome Dark Mode on iOS
As is often the case with customization features, iOS is lagging a bit behind the others in terms of implementing a dark mode. There’s no word of official dark mode support yet, so the closest thing you can do is invert the colors across the entire OS.
To do this, go to “Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Display Accommodations”. Once you’re on this screen, tap “Invert Colors”, then the switch next to “Smart Invert” to turn it on.
Enable Chrome Dark Mode on Android
To enable dark mode on Chrome for Android, open the browser, tap the three-dotted menu icon at the top right corner, then “Settings.”
After that, click “Theme” from the list then select the “Dark” one.
Use Third-Party Dark Mode Extension
As you can see above, enabling dark mode isn’t quite as simple a process as it should be. So instead of jumping through those hoops, you can instead download a ready-made third-party Chrome extension that will let you turn on dark mode at the click of a button.
Super Dark Mode is a good option, not only giving you a dark mode toggle but a whole bunch of options including a whitelist to stop certain sites using dark mode. It also has a specialized dark mode for many of the most popular sites and social media platforms on the internet.
And that’s pretty much it for enabling dark mode in Chrome. There are plenty of other apps that also support the feature, so check out our guides on enabling dark mode for Snapchat, Facebook, and YouTube.
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