Wikipedia:Dark mode

A light-on-dark color scheme (dark mode, night mode) has been suggested as an option/enhancement to Wikipedia numerous times since 2010, including on Phabricator. Wikipedia's smartphone apps and mobile website offer an official night mode, and a desktop web version for the Vector 2022 skin will follow in mid-July 2024.


 * Update: On July 15 a dark beta was available for registered users, and now that is available to everyone.

In addition to this there is a gadget on English Wikipedia, and various volunteer-written CSS files that allow customization for logged-in users. More limited options exist for non-logged-in users. No current options are actively supported or maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Special:Preferences

 * Mobile users (users of the Minerva skin) can visit the settings page, and select "dark" from the list of color options.
 * Users of the Vector 2022 skin can enable dark mode by enabling "Accessibility for reading (Vector 2022)" in the "Beta features" section of preferences, then setting the option to "dark" in the "Appearance" menu.

Gadgets
There are two Gadgets that can be enabled in Preferences:
 * Dark mode (gadget) - Under the "Appearance" section of the "Gadgets" tab, select the checkbox for "Dark mode toggle". Once checked, dark mode is available to toggle in the preferences portlet, located in the Upper Right-Hand corner of the page. The link to click is named "Dark mode", and is by the "Watchlist" link.
 * MediaWiki:Gadget-Blackskin.css - Also found under the "Appearance" section of the "Gadgets" tab, is the checkbox with text: "Use a black background with green text".

CSS
Apart from gadgets, an alternative way to get a dark mode is adding custom CSS to your user style page(s). This is more complex than activating a gadget, but more flexible, allowing, for example: custom colors, custom fonts, or hiding unused UI elements. Help:User style describes the process of adding custom CSS in general. For dark mode-specific CSS, a number of options are available including:


 * WikimediaUI Dark mode – the css powering the dark mode gadget usable as a standalone style without the gadget, stable version from April 25, 2020, by User:AHollender (WMF), User:Volker E. (WMF), User:MusikAnimal
 * Darklands dark theme – a low contrast dark mode in development July 2023, tested with Vector legacy only, by User:Dialectric
 * DavidL's DarkTheme – in development May 2023, by User:DavidL
 * Tollens' dark theme – an easily-customizable dark theme by User:Tollens
 * wikipedia-userstyle-dark-minimum by User:Vitaly Zdanevich

Skins
A dark mode feature will be rolled out during 2024 as part of the Reading/Web/Accessibility_for_reading project for Vector 2022 and Minerva skins.

It is currently available on the mobile site for all users.
 * To enable on mobile, click settings and select dark theme.

Browser extensions
There are browser extensions for popular browsers that offer a Wikipedia-specific dark mode, and browser extensions that allow you to set custom CSS for a given domain, which could be used with the CSS available above. However, all browser extensions need to be carefully screened for security issues. Some inject advertising, and customization may be more difficult than editing a single CSS file.

There are several add-on/extension offerings on Firefox which work well. The most popular is Dark Mode for Wikipedia which uses only a single css style sheet to enable dark mode on Wikipedia. Do not install any extension or add-on that you don't trust.

Browser settings
If you use Chrome, there is also a built-in experimental/beta setting to force dark mode, set through chrome://flags/ with the description "Force Dark Mode for Web Contents - Automatically render all web contents using a dark theme". This is provided by Chrome's development team, so security should not be a concern, but this will render all web pages in dark mode. This feature is also available in Microsoft Edge, through the edge://flags/ menu.

MediaWiki dark mode options
If you manage your own wiki and have access to its files, you can install extensions and skins that support dark mode.

Extensions

 * mw:Extension:DarkMode

Skins

 * mw:Category:Skins with dark mode
 * mw:Skin:Aether
 * mw:Skin:Citizen
 * mw:Skin:DarkCosmos
 * mw:User:Aron Manning/Skin themes
 * mw:Skin:Vector/DarkCSS

Gadgets

 * MediaWiki:Gadget-Blackskin.css
 * MediaWiki:Gadget-dark-mode.css