Although Google has been experimenting with dark mode for Google Chrome for desktop and mobile for several months, it has not provided a simple button to enable it. Chrome’s dark mode has to be enabled differently for each operating system.
Even though Google Play Store has Dark mode now, it cannot be used without enabling Dark/Night mode on the phone. But, it can be enabled in the App’s Settings for Drive. The dark mode is not yet available for Gmail. In fact, Google has no firm intention regarding Dark mode!
Before further discussion, let’s consider how to enable dark mode for Chrome.
For Windows 10
In order to get the dark mode for Chrome on the computer, the dark mode must be enabled in the entire system first. Follow the below steps for that.
Right-click the desktop and select Personalize. Or, open Settings from the gear icon on the left side of the Start Menu, then access Personalize.
Now go to Colors and select Dark under “Choose your color”.
Chrome will also black out accordingly, and no browser restart is required. Here, the UI of the browser is blacked out, but the websites are still there.
For macOS
The dark mode must be enabled in the operating system when using Chrome for Mac. For that, you need to have Mojave installed. The update is available from the App Store.
After installing Mojave, you can enable Dark mode by opening System Preferences, going to General, and selecting Dark in front of Appearance.
If you want to remove the colors even in the colorful Close and Minimize buttons in the Title bar, select the given gray color with the Accent color below it.
At the same time, dark mode is also automatically available for Chrome. For that, Chrome should be updated to version 73. Chrome’s dark mode for Mac came before Windows.
For other operating systems
If you are using an older version of Windows like Windows 7 or Vista, your best option is to get dark mode through a theme.
For this, the Just Black Theme provided by Google can be used.
The same method can be used if the Linux distribution you are using does not have the dark mode facility, and it is shown in a post published on Reddit that by changing the theme of the operating system to Gnome, the dark mode can be obtained for Chrome.
If the Gnome Tweak Tool is not already installed, use the following command.
sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool && gnome-tweak-tool
From the Tweak Tool window that opens, go to Appearances and select the Yaru-Dark Theme. Then, click the Use GTK+ button under Themes in Chrome’s Settings → Appearance.
If using the default Firefox for Ubuntu, go to Customize and select Dark from Themes.
For Android
Although Chrome turns black by applying dark mode to the operating system of computers, at the time of writing this article, it is not possible to enable dark/night mode on Android and get a dark mode for Chrome.
To do this, go to chrome://flags/ and search for “Android Chrome UI dark mode”, select Enabled from the list below, and relaunch the browser.
After re-opening, the Toolbar that was at the top may have been moved to the bottom of the screen. From its three-dot icon, go to Settings and go to Themes under Basics (this only appears when Enabled via Flags as mentioned earlier), and select System default.
Then only when you apply Night mode on the phone, Dark mode will also be available for Chrome, and if you want to continue, select Dark.
For iOS and iPadOS
Still, (at the time of writing) Apple hasn’t added a dark mode to Chrome 77 for mobile devices. Unfortunately, Google has not yet made it possible to do this through Flags like in Android.
Until it’s available, go to Settings in the operating system, go to General → Accessibility → Display accommodations, and select Smart Invert. This can interfere with the views of other apps, so be careful about that.
Dark Mode for visited websites
If you want to force dark mode even on websites for Android and PC, visit chrome://flags/ and search for “Force Dark Mode for Web Contents”. Or, go to chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark. Select the Invert method that suits you best from the list in front of it and Relaunch.
We feel that “Enabled with selective inversion of non-image elements” is currently the most successful. This is still experimental in Chrome, so it’s best to use only what you need, as even the typing cursor won’t show up correctly.
Afterword
With the above methods, you will be able to use the dark mode for Chrome easily. The above techniques may fail because you don’t have the latest version of Chrome. To check for updates on the computer, access About Chrome from the Help menu.
The advantage of using dark mode for Chrome is to avoid the discomfort caused by white light at night. You may have noticed that although the Blue Light Filter provides some relief, it is not as effective as the Dark mode.
As an advantage of this, it cannot be mentioned that “reduced battery usage” is that Google has not used single black for Play Store, Drive as well as Chrome. OLED screens do not have a particular advantage because they use a gray color that is close to black.
However, Facebook has used a single black color for their Messenger and Instagram. But, have they forgotten their main app “Facebook” app? It is mentioned that the work is still being done on it, even though it should have received it first.
