Like other popular web browsers, there’s a way to brute force dark mode on Edge. According to studies, this is very helpful to avoid too much exposure to blue light. Especially, if you are needed to stay in front of your monitor for hours to do your work or research. When you work under white light, the longer you stare at your monitor can dry and cause eyestrain. Also, most monitor screen produces blue light that can affect not only your eyes but can also disrupt your sleeping habit.
Microsoft Edge, being a chromium-based browser, has a built-in capability to force all websites to switch automatically to dark mode. This is even if a website does not have a dark mode version.
And in this how-to article, we will show you not only how you can brute force the dark mode look on Edge but also other ways how you can do it.
What's In Here
Setting Microsoft Edge Dark Appearance on Windows 10
With Windows 10 (Windows 11 and up), you can customize your desktop appearance to your liking – such as switching Windows 10 to dark mode.
However, personalizing your Windows 10 to a dark color does not apply to all of your applications. Unless you configure the application, such as Microsoft Edge, to either use the system default’s color or use a different one.
To do that, you can do the following:
- Open your Microsoft Edge and type “edge://settings/appearance” in the URL bar. Or you can click the three dots menu icon, and scroll down until you see Settings.
- On the left pane, under Settings, click Appearance. You will see on the main window (right), the “Overall appearance” option.
- For Microsoft Edge, if you already personalized your Windows 10 and switched to dark mode, then you can choose the “System default“. Otherwise, you can select the “Dark” option
By doing so, your Microsoft Edge theme will follow your system’s default color, which is dark. However, this does not mean that when you visit a website, it will be also in dark mode.
The changes will only take effect on the application itself, such as the bars, window, menus, etc – except to the website’s actual color.
Steps How To Brute Force Dark Mode on Edge With Experimental Flag
As mentioned, Microsoft Edge has built-in experimental features like Google Chrome. And one of the features available in Microsoft Edge is the “Auto Dark Mode for Web Contents“. What this feature does is automatically render the web contents to use the dark mode theme – forcibly.
Let’s try.
1. Open your Microsoft Edge and type “edge://flags/” in the URL bar then press the Enter key.
2. Then either you scroll down to the available experiments until you find the “Auto Dark Mode for Web Contents” or just type “dark mode” in the search field.
3. To enable the auto dark mode, click the drop-down menu and select the option “Enabled“. You will be asked to restart your Microsoft Edge browser for the changes to take effect. Just press the “Restart” button.
Once you restart your browser, almost 100% of the websites that you will visit will be rendered with contents in a dark mode theme.
Why “almost 100%”? It is because on some websites you will still notice contents or objects that are not fully in black background. Some may have a background that is using an image that is not dark or the text used might not become visible once you turn on the dark mode. The experimental feature will automatically adjust these for you so that the content is still readable.
Dark Mode Or Not To Dark Mode?
Now that we’ve shared with you how you can brute force dark mode on Edge, it is up to you if you want to permanently use this feature or not. You have the option to do it whenever you want it.
But it wouldn’t hurt if you set your screen to dark mode from time to time so that it won’t damage your eyes.
