Enable Dark Mode in Google Chrome on Windows

Google Chrome Icon 4 Big 256

Google Chrome users are familiar with the dark theme of Incognito mode available in the browser. Many of them want to get this theme for the normal browsing mode of Chrome. Here is a bit of good news: A native dark mode option is coming to Chrome on Windows, and you can already try it.

As of this writing, Google Chrome is the most popular web browser. It is available for Windows, Linux, Mac and Android. Sporting a minimalist design, Chrome features a very powerful fast web rendering engine "Blink" to make your browsing experience faster, safer, and easier.

Starting in Chrome 69, the browser features significant changes to the user interface. These include a 'Material Design Refresh' theme with rounded tabs, the removal of the 'Secure' text badge for HTTPSweb sites replaced by a Lock icon, and a reworked new tab page.

As you may already know, Chrome doesn't support the built-in Dark theme of Windows 10. In fact, only a few third-party Desktop apps support it. Also, besides File Explorer, there are no built-in Win32 apps that support it.

Upcoming versions of Google Chrome will get full support for the Dark theme of Windows 10. Also, so you will be able to enable it when needed. The change has already landed on the Canary channel of the Chrome browser. You can force enable it with a special command line option.

Enable Dark Mode in Google Chrome on Windows

  1. Download and install Google Chrome Canary.
  2. Right-click on its Desktop shortcut and select Properties from the context menu.
  3. Modify the Target text box value. Add the command line argument -force-dark-mode after the chrome.exe portion.
  4. Click Apply, then click OK.

Now, double-click on the shortcut. This will activate dark mode in Google Chrome.

As of this writing, the implementation is not perfect (see the main menu above). It will receive various design improvements and fixes over time. Once this is done, the feature should appear in the stable stream of the browser.

Source:  9to5google

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

2 thoughts on “Enable Dark Mode in Google Chrome on Windows”

  1. On the meantime, we can use this theme to get dark mode: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ahifcnpnjgbadkjdhagpfjfkmlapfoel

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