How to activate Chrome's “Dark Mode” on Android (Dark Mode)

The popularity of dark mode continues to grow. Every time we see it present in more applications, such as Facebook Messenger. Other messaging apps like WhatsApp, for example, have also officially received the night theme (if you have an old mobile with an old version of the app, try these tricks to get the dark mode on WhatsApp).

We recently discussed how to activate the dark mode in Android at the operating system level, and today we are going to delve a little more into the subject. In the next tutorial, we explain how to enable the dark mode in Google Chrome browser for Android.

How to activate the official Dark Mode of Google Chrome on Android

The new function of dark mode or "dark mode" is available from the latest version of Chrome (version 78)published on October 24. This means that we don't need to use experimental tools like Chrome Dev or Canary. We just have to activate an option in the browser settings and that's it.

What's more, if we have a previous version of Chrome (between versions 74 and 78) we can also do it, but in this case by activating a simple "flag" (we will explain how to get it a little further down).

1. Update to Chrome 78 or higher

The first thing we have to do to start enjoying Chrome's dark mode is update the browser to version 78 or higher. If we are not clear about our version of Chrome, we can check it from the menu "Settings -> Chrome Information -> App Version”.

If our version of Chrome is lower than 78, we will have to update the app. The new version is available on Google Play, but if it has not yet reached our device, we can update by installing the official APK that we leave you right here below.

Update Google Chrome: From Google Play Store | From APK package

2. Activate the dark theme from the settings menu

Now that we have an updated version of Google Chrome, we only have to display the browser settings menu (3-dot button, located in the upper right) and select «Setting«.

Within the configuration menu, click on «Topics»And select«Dark«. Chrome will automatically apply the dark theme on all the screens of its interface. That easy!

How to activate the dark theme in older versions of Chrome

If we cannot (or do not want to) update our browser to a more recent version, Chrome also allows us to enable dark mode. For this we must have one of these versions of Google Chrome: version 74, version 75, version 76 or version 77.

We can check the version of our browser from the menu "Settings -> Chrome Information -> App Version”.

1. Enable the Dark Mode “Flag”

The Chrome browser has a hidden section, called "flags", where we can test new features in development. One of them is the defendant Dark Mode.

• First, we write in the address bar "chrome: // flags" (without quotation marks). We load the page.

• Next, in the search box we write “dark mode”. In the search results we select "Android Chrome UI Dark Mode”.

• What we have to do now is activate this flag. Click on "Default"And select"ENABLED”.

• Finally, click on the blue button "Relaunch Now”To restart the application.

3. Activate the “Dark Mode” in the configuration settings

Now that we have all the cards on the table, all we have to do is go to "Settings -> Dark Mode”And click on“Activate”.

Note: As this is a feature that was still under development in versions prior to 78, it may still cause some glitches during activation. For example, personally I have had to restart Google Chrome 3 times until the option "Dark Mode" appeared in the settings menu.

4. Try Chrome's dark mode

Once we have the dark theme activated we will see how it applies to the entire Chrome UI. From the navigation bar, through the app's settings and menus, as well as the new tab window.

The only problem that we have currently detected with the dark mode is the black texts on a gray background. It is something that is noticeable when we unfold the tabs in cascade, which can make them difficult to read at certain times.

For the rest, it is a very attractive dark mode, and it seems that Google is already working to make this dark mode also applies to the web pages we visit from the browser.

How to activate dark mode on the websites we visit with Chrome

Google still does not officially offer the possibility of changing the content of the pages themselves to dark mode, although the truth is that it is a function that already exists. However, it is still in the experimental phase and in order to activate it we must modify a hidden Chrome configuration.

• Open Chrome and in the address bar type «chrome: // flags / # enable-force-dark" (without quotation marks).
• This will take us to the section of flags of Chrome, where we must press the button «Default»That appears next to the section«Force Dark Mode Web Contents«.
• This will open a pop-up window where we will mark the option «Enabled«.
• Finally, we press the button that says «Relaunch»To restart Chrome for the changes to take effect.

Once the browser is restarted, we will see how all the web pages that initially do not have dark mode available are shown in the dark mode. Here is a small example of how this same website would look with the aforementioned flag activated. Not bad, right?

As we mentioned, it is a feature that is still in development, so some pages can look a bit strange, although in general the results are quite satisfactory.