How to Disable Chrome Dark Mode on Windows and macOS

The eventual release of a dedicated dark mode for Chrome is a welcome move for those who want to enjoy late night browsing. That too, without blinding the eyes with the brightness of a screen. However, the dark mode feature is quite similar to what is already available in Incognito mode.

If this is confusing or you want the browser to look the same as before, you may want to turn off dark mode.

Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. Chrome’s dark mode depends on the system color scheme in both Windows 10 and macOS Mojave. This means that you only need to switch the entire operating system to light mode to disable Chrome’s dark mode. This is not possible considering the dark mode functionality in other apps that you have to give up.

Fortunately, there are workarounds for both Windows and macOS versions of Chrome to disable the dark mode while keeping the system color mode. Let’s check them out.

How to Disable Chrome Dark Mode on Windows 10

Windows 10 is consistently gaining dark mode functionality in its repertoire of native apps like File Explorer and Mail with every major update. To keep all of this intact and still turn off dark mode in Chrome, simply add a simple command line variable to the Chrome shortcut on your desktop. Make sure you exit the browser before continuing.

Note:

Stage 1: Right-click the Chrome shortcut on your desktop, and then click Properties.

Step 2: Under the Shortcut tab, add the following command line at the end of the Target field.

--disable-features=DarkMode 

Important:

Click Apply and then click OK to save the changes. Start Chrome and normally it will render without the dark theme in place. If you want to switch to dark mode later, simply delete the command line you added to the Chrome shortcut.

Alternatively, you can bypass the problem and disable dark mode by switching to Light app color mode in Windows 10. However, this will also disable dark mode functionality in other apps that depend on the system color scheme.

To do this, type ‘color settings’ into the Start menu, click Open, and click the Radio button next to Light in the Settings window that opens.

Once again, use the command line workaround if you only want to disable dark mode in Chrome or just switch to Light app color mode if you don’t mind losing functionality everywhere.

How to Disable Chrome Dark Mode on macOS Mojave

As with Windows, disabling Chrome’s dark mode functionality in macOS Mojave also requires you to disable the system-wide dark mode available throughout the operating system. But once again, you can use a workaround to disable the functionality in Chrome only. It’s even easier than on Windows and involves running a command via Terminal. Remember to exit Chrome before continuing.

Stage 1: Open Terminal via Spotlight Search.

Step 2: Copy and paste the following command into Terminal and then press Enter.

defaults write com.google.Chrome NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool yes 

And that’s it. Launch Chrome and you can no longer see it rendered in dark mode.

If you want to revert this change later, enter one of the following commands in Terminal and then press Enter:

defaults delete com.google.Chrome NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance 

Or

defaults write com.google.Chrome NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool no 

If you don’t mind losing the system-wide dark mode in macOS Mojave, you can easily turn off Chrome’s dark mode without having to fiddle with Terminal commands.

To do this, open the Apple menu, click System Preferences, click General, then click Light next to Appearance.

It all depends on what you prefer – use the Terminal command to turn off dark mode for Chrome, or switch to Light color scheme via System Preferences if you don’t care about the effect on the rest of the OS.

We Need More Flexibility, Google!

It’s great to see a native Chrome dark mode fully integrated with the default system theme color on Windows and macOS. However, there should have been an option to disable the functionality within the browser itself. Hopefully, Google will take this into consideration and make it happen soon. Until then, you have the above workarounds to thank.

Next: Chrome’s native dark mode does not affect most web pages. Find out how you can do that with these extensions.