How to force Dark Mode on websites using Chrome

Forced Dark Mode is Google Chrome’s new feature that can forcibly enable a dark theme for any website, irrespective if the website supports one or not. Read further to know the steps to enable dark mode for web content in the Chrome browser on Windows 11/10.

What is Forced Dark Mode for Web Contents

Here, the “dark mode” doesn’t refer to the operating system’s dark mode or the browser’s UI dark mode; instead, it refers to the website’s content. So, if you like to read web content with a dark background, then forced dark mode will be a very usable feature, but you will need to enable the feature manually.

Force Dark Mode on websites using Chrome

Step 1 – Get the latest version of Google Chrome

First, you will need to update your Google Chrome Browser:

On your computer, open the Chrome browser
From the top right, click ‘More’ i.e. the three-dot icon
Click ‘Update Google Chrome’. If you do not see this button, you are on the latest version.
Click ‘Relaunch’.

You can also open Chrome, click on the ‘More’ icon, select ‘help’ and then click on ‘About Google Chrome’. Google Chrome will automatically check for the update.

Step 2 – Enable ‘Force Dark Mode’

It is important to understand, this “dark mode” will affect the look of a website. It will not affect the look of your operating system or the Google Chrome browser’s independent interface. Follow these steps to enable this feature in Chrome 78 and later:

Open Chrome Browser.

In the address bar, enter the following address:

chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark

This will bring up a veiled Chrome settings menu and the ‘Force Dark Mode’ option

Now, go to the drop-down menu appearing next to the ‘Force Dark Mode’ feature.

Select ‘Enabled’

Now, hit the ‘Relaunch’ button to restart your browser.

Please note – In Step 4 above, you will see many options in the drop-down menu; most of them work in a similar fashion with little variations. You can play around with the options and select the one which perfectly boils down to your personal favorite.

Under the hood, the Forced Dark Mode feature uses color theory to reverse the color to its exact opposite (white to black, and vice-versa). Some websites have their own pre-defined dark modes, hence when using this feature, they will be activated automatically in Chrome. For the ones which do not have their own dark mode, the browser will ‘force’ dark mode by inverting certain colors.

Browse and see how this feature works. If you do not like it, just head back to Chrome’s Experiments screen and change this option back to the “Default” mode and hit the ‘relaunch’ button. Once the option is disabled, Google Chrome will stop playing with website colors.

You can now enable Chrome Dark Mode via Settings.

TIP: This post shows how to how to force Dark Mode on websites using the Edge browser.