Google had started intensively pushing out dark mode for its applications ever since Android 9 Pie landed, pretty much. Quite a few applications that are made by Google support dark mode, and such an option is coming to a lot more of them, it seems.
The dark mode is not only useful for preserving battery life on smartphones with OLED displays, but it can also be quite useful late at night when you simply don’t want that bright display hurting your eyes.
Dark themes have been around for a long time, and a number of well-known third-party apps have been rocking them for years. Many people simply prefer dark themes over light ones, and Google finally joined the party.
In the list down below, you will find our favorite Google apps with dark mode, truth be said, this is the vast majority of apps from the company that currently support dark mode. The dark mode is also coming to Gmail in the near future, and some people received it for Google Drive, but not all of them. Having said that, if you’re interested in checking out what apps are listed, feel free to do so, but keep in mind that these apps are not listed in a specific order.
Google Photos
Google Photos had the dark mode option for a short period of time now. Google started rolling it out for a limited number of users, and it became available to everyone recently. This app does not have a manual switch in the app’s settings, you need to enable the dark mode option via Developer Options, at least that was the case for us. Dark theme in Google Photos may eventually become available as a manual option, or as an automatic thing for those of you who have activated a dark theme option via regular settings (not developer options). Google opted for a dark gray background here, as with pretty much all of its apps, so this is not an OLED-friendly dark theme.
YouTube
YouTube has had the dark theme option for quite some time now, it was one of the first Google-made apps to receive the dark theme treatment. Much like with Google Photos, Google opted to include a dark gray background in YouTube. This app does contain a manual switch in settings, which is hard to miss. The dark mode is really well incorporated here, and it does make this app easier on the eyes.
Snapseed
Snapseed surely is not as popular as Google Photos or YouTube, but this app had the dark theme option for some time as well, and it’s the same one as in other apps provided by the company. Much like YouTube, Snapseed comes with a manual switch in the app settings, using which you can activate its dark theme. For those of you who do not know, Snapseed is Google’s photo editing application, and quite a capable photo editing application.
Google Contacts
Google Contacts app has been a part of the dark theme family for a while now as well, and a manual switch is included here as well, at least for the time being. Google Contacts app is predominantly white by default, so the dark mode sure helps. This is Google’s very own Contacts application, it’s quite simple, and many people actually prefer to use it over the default contacts app that comes on their Android devices, as it’s available for a wide range of Android smartphones.
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is also one of those apps that come with a manual switch in the settings, and this app had received the dark theme treatment quite recently. This was one of the most requested changes when it comes to the dark theme, as many people wanted to see Google Calendar turn dark. This is also an app that many people use as their main calendar app, due to its simplicity and mostly bug-free experience.
Google Keep
Google Keep is one of the most popular note-taking applications in the Play Store, and the app became considerably more appealing to some people after it received the dark theme treatment. Google Keep has a manual dark theme switch in its settings, which you will need to utilize as the app comes with a light theme by default, like every other application by the company. You can still utilize the app’s color-coding option, as the app allows you to mark specific notes with various colors, though those colors are now much darker than in light mode. Google did a pretty good job with Google Keep when offering a dark theme.
Messages
Messages is the company’s very own SMS application, which also comes with a Chat function for those of you who have access to RCS, but that’s a completely different story. Messages, also known as Android Messages, received the dark theme quite some time ago. Like the vast majority of applications that we’ve talked about, this app does come with a manual switch, all you need to do is peek in its settings.
Google Chrome
Google Chrome does come with a dark mode, and you can even set up this app so that it not only shows its own UI in dark mode, but the content you’re trying to open as well. Activating dark mode in Google Chrome is not that simple, though, it requires you to open developer settings within the application, and after adjusting settings there, you need to navigate to the app’s settings and activate the dark mode. Here’s how you can enable it, this is a guide for the Chrome Beta app, but the same procedure applies for the stable version of the app.
Google News
Google News is the main news application for a lot of people, and luckily for those of you who use it, Google did enable a dark theme in this app. Dark modes are extremely important for apps in which you need to do a lot of reading, and Google News is definitely one of those applications. Google News’ dark mode does not really differ from other implementations by the company, in terms of shades of gray the company used. The most important thing is, reading the text is not an issue here, at all.
Gboard
Gboard is Google’s keyboard application, and this app does not really have a dark mode per se, in the app’s settings, but the app does come with a lot of themes, some of which are dark. Considering you will probably set this app up once, and never mess around with its settings after that, you will be looking at the keyboard itself most of the time, so if you set a dark theme, then we can say that this app does come with a dark theme option, sort of.