There’s a lot to love about Chromebooks, but there's also plenty that they’re lacking compared to Macs and Windows machines. Like the fact Chromebooks still don’t have a dedicated dark mode, much to the ire of its users.
Thankfully we have some good news for you, because it seems Chrome OS could be getting its own dedicated dark mode sometime in the near future.
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Android Police spotted a change in the Chrome OS canary channel, revealing that Google is at least working on a system-wide dark mode for Chrome OS. While it’s not clear when such a stable version of the feature would roll out to the public, the fact that Google seems to be working on it is a good thing. Especially if you plan on working late, or have some other reason to have to focus on the screen for long periods of time.
If you’d rather not wait, you don’t need to, provided you have the Canary channel installed on your Chromebook first. Then all you have to do it copy and paste chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark and chrome://flags/#enable-webui-dark-mode into your URL bar, then turn on both flags in the drop-down menu.
Voila! You have just enabled dark mode on Chrome OS. Albeit a very early, and likely very buggy, iteration.
The overall application of the new dark mode isn’t perfect, but it seems to be applying dark mode to all of Chrome OS’s UI. It’s reportedly working quite well with both the Chrome browser and other system web apps, which is always a good sign too.
There’s no date for a wider, stable rollout just yet, which means there’s going to be a wait before this is available to everyone. But the evidence is clear right now: Google is bringing dark mode to Chrome OS, and that makes being patient that little bit easier.
