Chrome os has been getting tons of attention recently for brand spanking new feature additions like the dark mode, read later, clipboard history, phone hub, and more. Of all the features, i do know many are eagerly expecting a system-wide dark mode to arrive on Chrome OS. Well, the wait is over. you’ll now enable chrome os dark mode on a Chromebook by enabling an easy Chrome flag. So with none delay, let’s plow ahead and find out how to experience the new dark theme on Chromebooks.
Enable Dark Mode on a Chrome OS:
To enable chrome os system wide dark mode on a Chromebook, you would like to enable a Chrome flag. But before that, you want to get on the Beta channel of Chrome OS to be ready to access the dark mode flag. Currently, dark mode has not arrived on the stable channel of Chrome OS so you’ll need to make a jump to a rather buggy (but usable) build. For your information, my Chromebook is currently on Chrome OS 88.0.4324.22 Beta channel.
If you’re on the stable channel then you’ll switch to the beta channel by getting to Settings -> About Chrome OS -> Additional Details -> Change Channel -> Beta. Now, re-open the “About Chrome OS” page again and check for updates. Don’t worry, this process won’t delete any of your files or programs. Having said all of that, let’s now undergo the steps.
1. chrome://flags on the browser and search for “dark”. Alternatively, you can open chrome://flags/#dark-light-mode to access the flag directly. Here, click on the drop-down menu next to “Dark/light mode of system UI” and select “Enabled”.
2. Next, click on the “Restart” button located at the bottom-right corner.
3. Now, open the quick Settings panel and you’ll find a replacement “Dark theme” toggle. Click on it to enable system-wide dark mode on a Chromebook.
4. To move to the light mode, only turn off the “Dark theme” toggle under the Quick Settings panel.
Chrome OS already had a kind of dark mode touch to its UI. The app drawer and quick settings menu were dark in design so turning on dark mode doesn’t do anything to those elements. However, turning on light mode brings a replacement vibrant UI which i prefer just about .
It’s very almost like Windows 10’s light theme. That said, the present implementation on Chrome OS dark mode is half-baked and messes up tons of things.
texts retain the dark color even in dark mode making it harder to read while trying to find apps within the app drawer. Taskbar doesn’t change its theme automatically. you would like to open the app drawer once to use the new changes. In light mode, the fast settings menu gets invisible thanks to an identical color set for the taskbar and quick settings menu. The dark mode remains not applied to the Settings page or the Files app, a minimum of on the Google Chrome Beta build.
Overall, it’s a half-hearted attempt at bringing chrome os system wide dark mode on Chromebooks. i’m pretty disappointed by this release because the feature made its appearance within the Canary channel two months back in October. Still, the implementation has not skilled a big improvement. Sometimes, a restart fixes things, but it’s all-around a not so good experience immediately.
So that is how you’ll enable both dark and lightweight mode on a Chromebook. the maximum amount as we love dark mode, I found the new light mode quite beautiful on my Chromebook. That said, the dark mode implementation is flaky at the best . Anyway, those were my thoughts. But what does one think? Do tell us your experience within the comment section below.
