Google Chrome will get a native dark mode…but only for macOS

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Everybody loves a good dark theme. Well, maybe not everyone, but a lot of Android enthusiasts are fans of native dark modes. Google’s latest Material Theme overhaul has been predominately bright white, but a few apps have picked up dark modes. YouTube and Android Messages are the most recent recipients. It looks like Google Chrome may also get a dark mode, but it will launch first (and maybe only) on macOS.

Apple added a feature in macOS 10.14 that allows users to choose a system-wide light or dark theme. Switching the system to dark mode will flip all compatible apps to a dark color palette. Chrome for macOS does not currently support this feature, but it seems to be in the pipeline. A recent commit for Chrome on macOS is titled “Add command line switch to force dark mode.” The linked bug report has project members discussing the addition of a dark mode.

According to the bug report, it’s too late to add this feature to Chrome 70, but it may be included in 71. We should see Chrome 71 hit stable on December 4th. One potential snag is how a dark mode would basically look just like Incognito mode. They will have to find a different way to distinguish them, or just rely on the Incognito icon.

A system-wide native dark mode is certainly a cool feature of macOS and something a lot of people would like to see on Android. Being able to instantly swap all apps to a dark color scheme at night would be very convenient. Hopefully, Google will see how nice the dark mode looks in macOS and bring it to Chrome on all platforms.