Staring at your Mac screen for too long in a dark room can be hard on your eyes. Instead of subjecting yourself to bright colors and blindingly white menus, you can enable dark mode. The feature has been available since the release of macOS Mojave in 2018, and just as you can enable dark mode in the Settings menu in Windows 10 and Windows 11, you can do the same in System Preferences on a Mac. Here’s how to set up and customize the feature.
How to Enable Dark Mode on Mac
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If you want dark mode on your Mac, all you have to do is open System Preferences > General and choose the Dark appearance. This will change the color of the operating system settings menu, the Dock, and the menu bar at the top of the screen. If you are still using one of Apple’s default wallpapers, the colors will also change to a darker shade.
You can further customize the dark theme from this same menu by changing the accent color used for settings menus and supported apps. If you want distinctly black windows, uncheck Allow tinting wallpaper in windows.
Dark mode can also be activated quickly from the control center. Click the switch icon in the menu bar and click DisplaySo choose dark mode to activate and deactivate the function.
How to configure hot desktop
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If you only want dark mode at certain times of the day, head over to System Preferences > General and choose instead Auto, which will change the color theme of your desktop depending on the time of day. The OS will use light mode during daylight hours, then switch to dark mode after hours.
Apple offers a collection of color-changing desktop backgrounds. To change the default wallpaper, go to System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver and choose the Apple folder to select from a collection of backgrounds supporting different color themes.
Some options will change color multiple times throughout the day, while others will have a simple day or night theme to switch between. For Dynamic Desktop to work you need to select one of the supported backgrounds and make sure it is set to Automatique. If you select either Light (again) Where Dark (Again), this will change your OS theme to match.
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Which apps are affected?
Apple TV app (Credit: PCMag/Jason Cohen)
When you change the color theme on your Mac, it also changes many built-in apps, including App Store, Disk Utility, Find My, Keynote, Mail, Maps, Messages, Music, News, Notes, Numbers, Pages, Photos, Podcasts, Safari, Shortcuts, System Preferences, TextEDit, TV, etc.
Some third-party apps will also support dark mode on your Mac. Therefore, changing the theme will also affect apps like Chrome and Signal. Check any other programs you use to see if they have options to change the color theme.
To dim the lights on all your Apple devices, learn how to turn on dark mode on your iPhone or iPad.
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