Photo : Mark Lennihan ( AP ) Finally, Windows 10 users will have access to Chrome’s official Dark Mode. On Tuesday, Google announced that it would begin rolling out its stable version of Chrome 74 for Windows, Mac, and Linux in the coming weeks. Along with the update comes Dark Mode support for Windows 10 users that’s been available on MacOS since last month with the rollout of Chrome 73. Advertisement You’ll want to make sure Windows 10 is up to date and though Chrome automatically updates itself, you can force it by clicking the three little dots in the upper right corner of the browser, hovering over “help,” and clicking “about Chrome.” As ZDNet notes, there is, unfortunately, no simple switch to enable the support. As with MacOS, for those Windows 10 users who already have Dark Mode enabled on their system, Chrome should match itself to their operating system setting. In other words, you have to go full Dark Mode or nothing. According to a Community Manager on the Chrome Help forum, Google is reportedly only “rolling out this feature to a small number of Chrome M74 users now” ahead of an eventual wider rollout. If this is the case for you, one commenter suggested a workaround for force-enabling the setting: - open the “Properties” of a Chrome shortcut - in the “Target” field, after “C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” ADD “—force-dark-mode” (Without the quotation marks) - “Apply” and “OK” At the time of writing, this trick wasn’t working for us but it seems others have had success. It’s possible that you’ll have better luck. Dark Mode in Windows 10, as with MacOS, mimics Chrome’s Incognito mode. The theme will change the theme of a new tab, the Bookmarks bar, and the options menu, according to Tech Times. As with the MacOS version, the Dark Mode does not appear to extend to Settings landing pages in Windows. Chrome 74 also introduces security changes as well as a Lite Mode for Android that will replace its Data Saver setting, a whitepaper for which Google said it will publish in the coming months. Some other features introduced in Chrome 74 include an Android option to “Remove animations” to reduce motion sickness, as well as an option for blocking sites from knowing you’re browsing in Chrome’s Incognito Mode (though it has to be enabled). Advertisement If you’re among the poor souls who stare at a computer screen for 12 hours a day, I can’t recommend Dark Mode enough. Even if you’re not, Chrome’s new setting at least brings a welcome unified color scheme to its platform so we can put those busted Chrome Web Store Themes behind us. Clarification: Because of a backend error, a double dash was changed to an em-dash in the suggested workaround from the Chrome Help commenter. Some Kinja readers noted that a single dash before “-force-dark-mode” works for force-enabling the Dark Mode setting. Neither single nor double dashes worked for us, but again, you might have better luck.<doc-sep>tech2 News Staff Apart from a number of fixes and improvements, Google Chrome’s version 74.0.3729.108 also brings its much-awaited dark mode. Chrome 74 is officially rolling out to Windows, Mac and Linux systems, but the dark mode has already been available with version 73 on macOS for a month. The long-awaited dark mode gives the Chrome browser’s UI a dark theme (similar to its Incognito mode) but will also change the menus, the download window and more, making it more comfortable to use at night. As per a report by The Verge, the new dark mode will automatically switch when the dark theme is enabled on Windows 10. Google is still in the process of enabling dark mode on Windows but this has not been switched on for all users just yet. The same report cites a response by a community manager stating that the new dark mode has only been enabled for a small number of users and that a wider rollout would happen in the “near future”. But if you just can’t wait, here is how you can enable it. How to enable Chrome’s dark mode on Windows 10 To force the Chrome browser to switch to dark mode you need to modify the shortcut file on your desktop. You can do this by: Right-clicking on the Chrome shortcut Click to edit the Target field Then add “--force-dark-mode” to the end of the target location (without quotes) Once added, simply launch Chrome and the dark mode will be enabled.<doc-sep>Chrome 73 has officially rolled out to all users today, bringing with it several new improvements, including the long-awaited dark mode for macOS. (“Windows support is on the way,” the release notes read.) Dark mode was first announced for Chrome last month, but today’s release has made it official. It works pretty much as you’d expect: if dark mode is enabled on your computer (see here for macOS and here for Windows 10), Chrome will automatically theme itself appropriately to match, in what essentially looks like the browser’s regular darker Incognito Mode menu bars. (Incognito Mode while using dark mode on Chrome looks virtually identical, save for a new icon in the menu bar.) It’s Chrome, but darker It’s technically not the first time Chrome has offered dark or themed options — Google has offered themes for Chrome (including dark mode-esque styles) in the Chrome Web Store for a while, but today’s update makes it more official on a system level. So, instead of having to switch back and forth manually, Chrome will simply just respect whatever your native settings are. Conversely, if you aren’t a fan of Chrome’s new darker duds, you can use the Chome themes to flip your color scheme back toward a lighter style, which seems to be the only way to change the color back short of flipping your entire OS settings back to light mode. Correction, 7:16PM ET: It looks like Windows isn’t supported quite yet, contrary to what we originally reported — it’s Mac for now.<doc-sep>Google has been rolling out dark themes to its apps for over a year now. At long last, Chrome 74 for Windows has been updated with support for the dark theme. After you update Chrome (Three-dot menu > Help > About Google Chrome > Updates), you will be able to switch the browser’s look through Window’s Color settings. As you can see from the above photo, almost every element of Chrome including tabs, the URL bar, drop-down menu, and New Tab page change to a dark interface. Here’s how to do it on your computer. How to enable Chrome’s dark mode on Windows As mentioned above, you’ll first need to make sure you are updated to Chrome version 74. From there, hit the Windows button on your keyboard. In the text field, type in “Color settings.” Click on the option that appears at the top of your list. From there, scroll down the menu until you reach the “Choose your default app mode” section. Here you will have the option to switch between Light and Dark. Clicking on Dark will instantly set the dark mode on Windows, Chrome, and any other applications that support the theme.<doc-sep>
Chrome 74 is officially rolling out today for Windows, Mac, and Linux, marking the introduction of a new dark mode for Windows 10 users. The same dark mode arrived last month on macOS with Chrome 73, and today’s update includes automatic Windows 10 support. Chrome will automatically theme itself to match if a dark mode is enabled on Windows 10. The end result makes Chrome look almost identical to the browser’s darker Incognito Mode menu bars. While Google is enabling this new dark mode on Windows, the company hasn’t fully switched it on for all Chrome users just yet. “I can confirm that we are rolling out this feature to a small number of Chrome M74 users now, and that it will become more widely available in the near future,” explains a Chrome community manager. If you don’t want to wait for Google to fully enable this, there’s a shortcut trick to force dark mode: Find the shortcut you use to launch Chrome and open the properties Add “--force-dark-mode” to the end of the target location (without quotes) Launch Chrome and dark mode will be enabled. If you usually launch Chrome from a pinned taskbar item, you’ll need to right click the shortcut trick and then unpin / pin to taskbar again for this to hold Chrome has always offered theme support to enable a dark mode of sorts, but this official mode now means that context menus are properly themed across the browser and you’ll be able to read the download bar properly. Chrome 74 also includes a number of other changes that aren’t as obvious to spot visually. Chrome’s animation features can now be disabled to reduce motion sickness, and there’s a new flag to block websites from detecting Incognito Mode. Chrome 74 is available to download from Google’s Chrome site, or from help > About Chrome if you’re already using the browser.