14 DAY TRIAL // File Explorer has been around for like forever, and needless to say, it has barely evolved in the most recent Windows updates, despite customers requesting more advanced functionality that was implemented in third-party file managers.
Basically, most users wanted Microsoft to add two major updates to File Explorer, namely tabs to be able to work with multiple folders from the same UI and a dark theme.
Tabs is a feature that Microsoft is working on already, but instead of bringing them just to File Explorer, the company is introducing such functionality across the entire operating system with a feature called Sets. This way, tabs will be offered not only in File Explorer, but also in other apps like the Mail client and Microsoft Edge browser.
As for the dark theme, Microsoft quietly started working on it in the first builds of the Redstone 5 update, and beginning with build 17666, it is available for Windows insiders as well.
Look and feel
Before anything, it’s important to keep in mind that this dark theme is still in its early days in Windows 10, so not everything is as refined as you’d expect them to be. Microsoft itself acknowledged that certain features still need more touches, and the upcoming Windows 10 builds are likely to bring them.
The dark theme covers both the side and the right panes in File Explorer, as well as the ribbon at the top of the UI. This is where more improvements are needed, as the home, share, and view menu items come with a shade of grey when they should be black as well.
“When you install this build, you will see some unexpected light colors in File Explorer and the Common File Dialog. This is something we’re aware of and are working to address,” Dona Sarkar, head of the Windows Insider program, explained today.
One of the nice touches at this point is that even the context menus themselves have been made dark, so they neatly blend into the rest of the interface.
How to enable the dark theme
If you’ve already installed the most recent Windows insider preview build, you must know that this dark theme for File Explorer doesn’t come enabled by default. Instead, you have to activate it manually, and there’s a good chance that Microsoft will keep this behavior when this change becomes available for all users as well.
At this point, the majority of Windows 10 adopters are used to the existing light theme of File Explorer, and suddenly making it black would certainly create more confusion. Instead, what Microsoft can do is implement the dark theme in Windows 10 Redstone 5 and make people aware of its existence in the operating system, while also providing guidance on how to enable it. This way, if anyone wants to try out the dark theme of the file manager, they can enable it at any point, and Microsoft can thus avoid the criticism regarding a potential confusing change.
Right now, to enable the dark theme, users need to go to Settings > Personalization > Colors > Choose your default app mode > Dark. This will toggle the entire visual system to dark in Windows 10, so no, you can’t make just File Explorer use the dark theme for now.
There’s no word on whether this could change before Windows 10 Redstone 5 goes live, but it goes without saying that such an option would really come in handy, especially to those who otherwise enjoy what the operating system looks like with the light theme but don’t want to change everything just to enable the dark theme in File Explorer.
Redstone 5 is projected to launch in the fall of this year, so there’s still plenty of time for Microsoft to think this through.
