[Update: Rolling out again] Google Play Store finally starts showing a Dark Theme on Android 10

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Update 10/03/2019 @ 8:50 AM ET: Dark theme for the Google Play Store is rolling out again. The article as published on September 11, 2019, is preserved as below. Scroll to the bottom for more information.

At Google I/O 2019, Google unveiled lots of details about Android 10, including the fact that it has a system-wide dark mode that not only darkens the user interface of system apps but also flips the switch on any third-party apps that opt-in. Google said they planned to update all of their major apps with dark themes by the time Android 10 releases, but it’s been over a week since the stable Android 10 release for the Pixel smartphones and two major Google apps have yet to widely roll out dark themes: Gmail and the Play Store. Yesterday, the Gmail app for Android started showing a dark theme toggle for some users, and today, we spotted a fully functional dark mode in the Google Play Store as well.

Earlier today, I opened the Play Store app on my Pixel 2 XL running Android 10 and I noticed that the entire Play Store user interface was showing a really dark gray, almost black background color throughout the user interface. I have the system-wide dark mode enabled in Display settings, but I do not have the override force dark Developer Option enabled nor do I have any third-party themes installed. I did tinker a bit with the Play Store the other day, but that tinkering never led to a functional dark theme until today. XDA Recognized Developer Quinny899 tried to replicate it, but he was unable to get dark mode on his own device. Thus, it’s possible that this dark theme may actually be rolling out for some users via a server-side test. For reference, I am running version 16.6.25 of the Play Store app.

Here are screenshots showing off the new Google Play Store dark theme. The following 3 screenshots show off the home page, the Settings page, and the search page.

And these 3 screenshots show off the search results page, the detailed overview for an app listing, and the ratings and reviews page for any given app.

Once the Google Play Store widely rolls out the dark theme, we’ll let you all know. Google recently rolled out a Material Theme redesign for the Play Store in preparation for this dark mode, but the company pulled back and rolled out that redesign so many times that there’s no telling when they’ll make the dark theme available for all.

Update: Dark theme for the Google Play Store is rolling out again

Google has a habit of rolling out design changes and then pulling them back, for reasons not revealed to users. The same occurred with the Play Store, as the dark theme never reached a wider rollout. However, in some good news, we now have multiple reports that the dark theme has begun rolling out again, and for more users this time.

Thanks to XDA Senior Member and Twitter user @mahi4414 for the tip!