How To Enable Dark Mode On Chromebook: 6 Easy Ways

The dark mode. Nighttime mode. Whatever you want to call it, it’s the theme of choice for many of the cool kids.

It has an option that converts your website’s vibrant colors to the corresponding “darker” colors. To put it another way, there isn’t a lot of white space; instead, everything is either black or dark grey.

Because dark mode makes it simpler to see websites at night and helps reduce eye strain, it is growing in popularity among all computer users. Many individuals have used it to boost productivity, but its main benefit is that it generally enhances reading.

It’s finally possible to switch between Disable and Enable Dark Mode on Chromebook, thanks to Chrome OS 104.

Why Dark Mode?

For starters, it’s a lot easier on the eyes. The bright screen from websites that employ a lot of vivid colors and backgrounds might damage your eyes if you use your Chromebook at night.

A lot of white space appears to be the current “fashion” in web design. Sadly, this is hard on the eyes and may quickly induce eye strain (at least for me).

It’s much worse when you’re browsing in the dark.

Thus, “dark mode” allows you to darken all brighter colors and backgrounds.

Aside from the ability to browse in the dark, individuals utilize this mode for various purposes and occupations.

It is used for several purposes, including:

• Programmers and developers who spend their days staring at a screen
• Web designers who code.
• Image or video editors.
• Users who must use their Chromebook in a low-light situation.
• Users who browse with the lights turned off or don’t want so much empty white space aiming at their eyes all day.

In any event, the dark mode has become a popular solution and is favored by an increasing number of Chromebook users. Google has been working on this, but nothing has been disclosed, and Chrome OS customers are still in the dark (no pun intended).

To activate dark mode on a Chromebook, we must apply our brains and find some workaround options!

How to Enable Dark Mode on Chromebook?

The dark mode was one of the most desired Chromebook system upgrade improvements. Many people favor dark mode on any device since it makes it simpler to gaze at a screen for an extended period. 

Those who work at night will like the dark mode option. The dark mode is also useful since it minimizes the amount of blue light generated by the screen, reducing eye strain.

Because this function is still in its early stages, there are a few prerequisites that your device must satisfy before you can use it. For starters, you’ll need to enable a few Chrome flags, which are experimental features that Google is actively working on.

These are the ways by which you can bring dark mode to Chromebook:

Solutions to Enable Dark Mode on Chromebook

1. Switching to the beta channel
2. Use a dark theme
3. Use a Chrome extension
4. Turn down your brightness
5. Enable Night Light
6. Wait for the official release

Let us now discuss the solutions in detail:

Solution 1: Switching to the beta channel

Switching to Beta Mode

When upgrading to the Chrome OS beta version, you will lose all data from the previous version. Because changing channels wipes off all system info so, before changing the channel, back up all your vital data. 

Furthermore, remember that you can change your Chrome OS channel if you are permitted to do so. 

You must log in to your approved account to change your Chrome OS channel.

• To begin, sign in to your Google account and launch Chrome.
• Then, click on the Quick Menu in the lower right corner of the Chromebook screen.
• Click the Chromebook settings symbol (cogwheel) at the top of the quick menu to open the menu.
• Select Detailed Build Information from the About Google Chrome OS section.
• In the Channel section of the Detailed Build Information, select Change channel.

• Choose the Beta radio button, then click the Change channel button in the change channel window.

• After that, wait for the full download of Beta files to complete before rebooting your computer.
• After restarting your computer, you must sign in to ChromeOS with your Google account.

Enable Dark Mode on System UI

The dark mode feature of Chrome OS is no longer restricted to the Beta or Dev channel since it has found its way to the Stable channel but is not activated by default.

Follow the steps below to activate dark mode on your Chromebook after upgrading to the beta version:

• To begin, open the Chrome browser on your Chromebook.
• Then, on the search bar of your Chrome browser, type. chrome://flags.

• Then, go to the Experiments page and type “dark” or “dark mode” into the search field.
• As a result, you will see the Dark/Light Mode of System UI label, where you will click the Default button to proceed to the next stage.

• Click on Enabled in the list to choose it.
• The label Force Dark Mode for Web Content will appear here. Press the Default button again, then select the Enabled option from the list.
• After the operation is completed, restart your device.

Turning on the Dark Theme

Follow the steps below to enable the dark theme after restarting your computer:

• Select the Quick Menu panel from the bottom right corner of the Chromebook screen once again.

• When you open the menu, you’ll see a Dark theme icon. To proceed, click on the icon.
• Then, click the “Dark theme” toggle button to enable dark theme mode.

• Under the Dark theme mode, you have two options: Themed and Neutral. When you choose the themed option, the system utilizes the colors of your screen wallpaper as the system color. On the other hand, the neutral alternative uses a neutral color palette.

• You may enable dark mode on Chromebook by selecting one of the two dark theme options above. However, Chromebook dark mode is still in its early stages. Thus turning it on may result in issues and system slowdown.

When you restart your Chromebook, you’ll notice that your whole desktop has gone dark. System apps such as “Files” and “Settings,” as well as websites, will be in dark mode.

Furthermore, several programs stop working when you use dark mode on your Chromebook. If you’re having trouble using ChromeOS beta, switching to stable mode on your Chromebook is a better option.

Solution 2: Use a dark theme

The second option is to adopt a dark theme.

There are dozens of them available in the Chrome Web Store as downloaded themes. There are also a few that make it easier on the eyes.

The nicest benefit about utilizing a dark theme is that you can turn it on and off whenever you want. For example, if you just need to use dark mode on your Chromebook for particular tasks, you may enable it accordingly.

You may also have a “regular” theme during the day and a dark one at night! The nicest aspect of utilizing a theme is how simple it is to enable and disable it.

Some themes also change from light to dark depending on the time of day.

So, it will adapt independently without you having to go in and modify anything. Isn’t it awesome?

Here are some of the greatest dark themes for Chromebooks I’ve found thus far:

• Dark Theme for Google Chrome.
• Material Simple Dark Gray.
• Material Incognito Dark Theme.
• Black Black Chrome Theme Dark Blue Highlight.
• Morpheon Dark.
• Material Dark.

Solution 3: Use a Chrome extension

Next, we can utilize a Chrome extension to automate this process.

There are also many in the Chrome Web Store, so we want to utilize just the best.

Fortunately, I’ve already done the homework for you, having played with approximately 6-7 of them last month.

Some were lovely, but the colors didn’t render correctly, making it difficult to read. Others didn’t even work and were total scum.

Here are a couple of extensions worth looking into:

Dark Reader

Out of all the extensions I’ve tried, Dark Reader is perhaps the most popular (so far).

This plugin works on most websites and accurately produces colors to safeguard your eyes. It will truly create dark themes for every site you visit by inverting the bright colors to darker hues as you visit them.

There is a small performance hit because it must convert every site in real time, but this is to be expected.

Aside from that, I have no problems. If Google changes Chrome OS to function in the same manner as this extension does, we’ll be set.

It also features many customization options, such as contrast, brightness, a sepia filter, an allowlist, and even font adjustments.

Dark Reader also does not gather your personal information, which is a plus.

Dark theme for any website

This addon is free to use and does exactly what it says on the tin.

Some sites did not appear as well as they might have (ugly colors), which is anticipated with software that transforms colors in real-time. It’s also substantially quicker than other extensions on this list.

The best feature is that you can use the built-in settings to make certain sites dark and others light.

You may also choose between basic grayscale, sepia, brightness (or lightness), and basic contrast.

Super Dark Mode

Super Dark Mode enables automated dark mode and global CSS for those who know how to utilize it.

It’s essentially a stylesheet that can be applied to all sites to make them all seem the same, rather than distinct hues for different sites.

The automated setting is functional. You may configure it to enable or disable dark mode on its own.

There’s also a whitelist that allows you to pick which sites to apply the extension to with some basic customization.

It should be noted that this extension cannot “darken” two specific sites:

• Pages with new tabs.
• Google Chrome Web Store

Everything else may be made darker. But there is a simple solution.

Install a new tab page customizer for Chrome and select one that allows you to select a dark theme.

This eliminates the need to view a white screen whenever you open a new tab.

Night Eye – Dark mode on any website

Night Eye allows you to surf a few websites for free before charging you to use their addon.

Is it worth the money? I’m not sure. I’ve never tried it. However, based on the free version, it appears to be rather good.

There are three options available: dark, filtered, and normal.

• Dark allows you to darken all colors to make them easier on your eyes.
• Filtered preserves the site’s colors while allowing you to alter brightness, contrast, color warmth, and other parameters.
• Normal is essentially just turning off the extension; pages are presented as expected.

The Filtered mode doesn’t achieve anything that other extensions can’t. It’s essentially simply dark mode with Night Light turned on.

You can grab a free dark mode extension and couple it with Night Light on Chrome OS to imitate this (more on this later).

What’s amazing about it is that it has a built-in blue light filter, which removes the need for a Night Light.

When working in dark rooms or dimly lit locations, there’s also a “Dim” mode that dims the brightness as needed.

There’s also an image converter that changes only the small images on a website to provide a “smoother” experience.

Dark Night Mode

In real-time, Dark Night Mode adds the dark theme to all sites you visit.

Nothing distinguishes it from the other expansions. However, because this addon does not invert colors, black backgrounds will not become white.

That would be the inverse of what you expect, right?

Because there is no color inversion, the photos will not be deformed.

There’s also an automated mode, a whitelist, brightness sliders, and various additional options.

Overall, this is worth a look if you’re experiencing issues with color inversion or images not displaying correctly.

Night Shift

Night Shift performs the same function as the Night Light feature. After nightfall, it changes your lighting to warmer colors.

Although this isn’t quite a dark mode, utilizing warmer hues at night can likely help reduce some eye strain.

You can use this extension or the built-in one (covered later). You can create a custom timetable, utilize a specified schedule, or disable it entirely.

Is blue light truly harmful to your eyes? Yes. Not only your eyes.

Blue light has been linked to the following probable causes:

• Digital eye fatigue
• Eye strain
• Sleep disturbance
• Hormone suppression
• Melatonin suppression
• Circadian rhythm shifting

Some of them let you choose when you want to engage in dark mode and when you want to disable it.

This is useful since it eliminates the need to activate and deactivate the dark mode band. You can program it to do everything automatically. This will undoubtedly benefit those searching for a hybrid solution, such as using day mode during the day and night mode at night.

Of course, if you want it to be on all the time, you can install a simple Chromebook extension that enables dark mode and keeps it on. It’s important to remember that many of these extensions aren’t flawless.

Because each web page is unique, the colors may be rendered incorrectly, making it difficult to read for your eyes.

You may need to toggle the extension on and off for some websites. This is something we’ll have to live with until Google incorporates this into Chrome OS and handles it automatically.

Some of these extensions, I believe, allow you to put pages on a whitelist to avoid inverting the colors.

This is useful for the few sites where the colors do not shift appropriately and may spare your eyes from being scared. Most pages function properly, but they are not ideal solutions! But it’s all we’ve got for the time being!

Solution 4: Turn down your brightness

This is probably self-evident.

If you’re using your Chromebook in the dark, decrease the screen and lower the brightness. If you don’t use dark mode, decreasing the brightness on your screen is crucial to protecting your eyes from damage and strain.

Simply utilize the brightness sliders on your keyboard to reduce the strain on your eyes when reading text.

If you’re using a dark theme or a dark mode extension, you might wish to keep the brightness high. If you reduce the brightness when your screen is already black, it may become excessively faint! Simply use common sense and use eye protection.

Solution 5: Enable Night Light

Night Light is a new feature in Chrome OS that decreases the blue light emitted by your Chromebook’s screen.

This isn’t the same as dark mode because it doesn’t alter the brilliant colors to dimmer ones.

However, it does lessen your screen’s overall brightness, which may assist with eye strain.

Blue light is emitted by nearly all electronic equipment (at least modern-day ones). This type of illumination has been shown to keep people awake at night.

Not only that, but blue light can induce eyestrain, disrupt sleep, and various other problems you don’t want to deal with.

This is why it is harmful to use your phone, laptop, or computer before bed.

That’s probably why almost all current electronics include a blue light filter: they all accomplish the same thing.

• iOS/Mac have “Night Shift.”
• Chrome OS has “Night Light.”
• Android has “Night Mode.”
• Windows has “Night light.”

They generate warmer colors at night and minimize blue light. This helps to regulate your circadian rhythm.

This functionality is also available on your Chromebook. If you have a large Chromebook screen, this may assist in alleviating some eye strain.

You may activate it as follows:

• If you haven’t already, sign in to your Chromebook.
• Start the Chrome browser.
• In the address bar, type “chrome:/settings” and press Enter.
• Look for the word “displays.”

• Look for the phrase “Night Light.”

• Set the feature to ON.
• Make the color temperature warmer or colder by adjusting the slider (warmer = orange, cooler = blue).
• Set your Chromebook to enable/disable Night Light on a schedule automatically.

Solution 6: Wait for the official release

The final option is to wait for Google to release the official Chromebook release simply. This has long been rumored and should be included in Chrome OS any day now.

A Chrome 76 version is reported to be in the works. However, according to other accounts, they are now running Chrome 76 Beta and have yet to observe anything.

And even though Chrome 76 has been officially deployed into the Stable channel, we have yet to see anything.

Hopefully, it will be available sooner rather than later.

The first mention of dark mode was made a long time ago.

Some customers are disappointed that Google has published it on other platforms (Windows) but not yet on their own Chrome OS. Of course, this irritates many Chromebook users.

But it just means we’re due for an upgrade, which will soon bring us dark mode on Chrome OS.

Come on, Google, we want some of that night mode!

Conclusion

In this post, we addressed how to enable dark mode on Chromebook, how to use an alternative to dark mode, and enable the dark mode theme to enjoy the effects of dark mode. 

Google Chromebooks’ dark mode is experimental and has a few security flaws. As a result, we propose that you use the dark mode option.

Enable dark mode on Chromebook will affect your programs, system files, and webpages. The low light level allows your eyes to function more comfortably and productively.

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