Screenshot : Brendan Hesse ( Google Chrome Android )

Dark mode allows us all to stare at our phones a little more comfortably, especially at night—and it’s great for your device’s battery life, too. So last year’s arrival of dark mode capability in the world’s most popular web browser, Google Chrome, was a welcome site for sore eyes (perhaps literally). You can use Chrome’s dark mode with both Android and iOS. Here’s how to enable it on your device.


Before we get started, though, a quick warning: Enabling dark mode or dark theme on your device doesn’t mean that every webpage you browse will be dark. It simply changes Chrome’s homepage, toolbars, settings menus and some pages. But if you’ve wholly pledged yourself to the dark side, you can force Chrome to display other pages in dark mode, which we’ll also explain below.

How to enable dark mode for Chrome on Android

Chrome’s dark mode is available on devices running Android 5 and up—and while you’re at it, it’s a good idea to make sure your Chrome Android app is up to date, too. Make sure you download the most recent Chrome update from the Google Play Store, if any is available.


Once you’re properly updated, do the following:



Open Chrome on your device. In the top right corner, tap the three vertical dots > Settings > Themes. Choose the Dark theme. Or you can select System Default, which will put Chrome in dark mode if Battery Saver is enabled or if your device-wide settings are set to dark.

Screenshot : Brendan Hesse ( (Google Chrome Android )

You can also use an experimental Chrome feature called “Force Dark Mode for Web Contents” to make most websites display dark, even if they weren’t designed to. We’ve talked about this before, so to recap quickly, type chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark into your Chrome address bar, hit Enter, and toggle to enable the feature.


How to enable dark mode for Chrome on iOS

Dark Mode is a systemwide setting available on iOS 13 and later, rather than an option specific to Chrome. If you’ve enabled Dark Mode on your iOS device, all apps that support it will be dark—including Chrome.


Screenshot : Emily Long (Google Chrome iOS

To turn on Dark Mode, go to your device’s Settings > Display & Brightness. Toggle on the Dark option. Or, if you prefer a shortcut, swipe down to open the Control Center, long-press on the Brightness meter, and toggle Dark Mode on.


That’s it. Chrome will automatically switch from light to dark, which you can check by relaunching the app.

Screenshot : Emily Long (Google Chrome iOS


Chrome’s Force Dark Mode function is available on a Mac desktop or laptop, but not iOS. If you want to force websites to display dark on your iPhone, you can get around this using the iOS Smart Invert setting. This is found under Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size. Scroll down and toggle “Smart Invert.”



You may find certain text or page elements display incorrectly with dark mode (or Smart Invert) enabled. If this is too annoying, you can always disable dark mode—or switch it to a schedule, rather than a default. Just keep in mind that switching to light mode on iOS will affect all of your apps, not just Chrome.


This article was originally published in 2019 by Brendan Hesse and updated on April 28, 2020 by Emily Long. Our updates include the following: revised steps for Android for accuracy, added information about forcing dark mode on websites not built for it, added steps and screenshots for iOS and changed the headline.