On your modern Android smartphone or tablet, you can dark mode instead. That should make it easier for you to view and read the content on your device’s screen, and can improve battery life on phones with OLED displays. Here’s how to enable dark mode on your Android phone or tablet.
What Android Versions Support Dark Mode?
Android has officially received dark mode support with Android 10. This means you can enable the system-wide dark mode on your phone only if it’s running Android 10 or later.
Any versions prior to Android 10 have no official option to enable the system-wide dark mode.
If you aren’t sure what Android version your phone runs, you can check your version using an option in the Settings:
Launch the Settings app on your phone. Scroll all the way down, and tap About phone. You should find an option saying Android version and next to it will be the current Android version of your device.
How to Enable Dark Mode on Your Android Device
Once you confirm your phone runs Android 10 or later, you can head into the Settings and toggle an option to enable dark mode. Or, you can use the Quick Settings menu to turn on the mode.
Keep in mind that different phones have different ways to turn on dark mode. Some phones even offer the feature to schedule dark mode, but this might not be available on all phones even if they’re running Android 10.
Here are two ways to activate dark mode on an Android device.
Turn on Android Dark Mode From the Settings
You can use the Settings to enable as well as configure various options for dark mode.
On stock Android, just go to Settings > Display > Advanced > Dark theme.
On devices with custom versions of Android, you might find more options for dark mode or night mode. To activate Dark mode on a OnePlus phone, for example:
Access the Settings app. Tap Customization. Select Preset Theme at the top. Choose the theme that says Nuanced dark. This name varies from phone to phone but it should say something dark, and you’ll be able to recognize it. 2 Images Close If you want to use dark mode without changing the theme, tap Tone and then select Dark on the resulting screen. 2 Images Close
Your Android phone should now display most of its elements in a dark color.
Turn On Android Dark Mode From Quick Settings
Quick Settings is a quicker way to enable and disable dark mode on your Android device. Not all the Android devices out there have the dark mode option in Quick Settings, but you can check to see if the option is available on your device.
Here’s how you do that:
Pull down from the top of your phone’s screen. Tap the Dark mode tile to enable dark mode. If you don’t see the tile, swipe to the left and you’ll reveal more tiles.
How to Disable Dark Mode on Your Android Device
Turning off Android dark mode is as easy as turning it on.
If you used Settings to enable the mode, head into the same settings panel and choose a different theme. If you used the Dark tone, change the tone to the Light one and that should disable dark mode.
If you used Quick Settings to activate the mode, open Quick Settings again and tap the Dark mode option. This will disable the mode on your device.
What to Do if Your Device Doesn’t Support Dark Mode?
If your phone or tablet doesn’t support or run Android 10, you’re out of luck. You can’t enable and use dark mode on your device.
However, that’s not to say you can’t give a bit more darkish color effect to your device. On some devices, especially the ones running Android 9, you have at least one dark theme that you can use to get a dark mode-like effect on your device.
That might not work as well as the system-wide dark mode in Android 10, but that gets the job done at least to some extent.
Also, there are apps that support dark mode and you can individually enable dark mode in these apps on your devices.
Making Your Device Screen Easier on Your Eyes
If your eyes get strained after using your Android device for some time, you can try enabling dark mode to see if that helps you. As long as your phone runs Android 10 or later, you can toggle an option to enable the mode system-wide on your device.
Another way to protect your eyes while using your phone is to use a blue light filter. Again, this is built-in on some Android phones, and there are many blue light filter apps in the Play Store as well.
