Microsoft Edge has recently been updated with a feature that allows users to manually choose the theme they want in the browser, regardless of the settings made in the operating system.
This option is only available on Windows, for the time being, but it could be added in the macOS build as well.
First of all, let’s see how the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge previously worked on Windows 10.
The operating system already comes with a dark mode, so when Microsoft started the work on a dark theme for Microsoft Edge, it wanted its browser to perfectly align with the Windows 10 browser.
In other words, for more consistency across Windows 10, Microsoft Edge is capable of matching the visual settings in the operating system by automatically changing the theme to the desired mode.
In short, this approach comes down to the following configuration:
Windows 10 dark mode = Microsoft Edge dark mode
Windows 10 light mode = Microsoft Edge light mode (standard UI)
Switching from one visual style to another happens automatically, so no user input is required. The Windows 10 mode can be changed from the following location:
Windows 10 > Settings > Personalization > Colors > Choose your default app mode
Switching from one setting to another also changes the mode in your apps, including Microsoft Edge.
While this behavior does provide the consistency I was talking about earlier, this isn’t necessarily the right way to go for some users. Pretty much because they want the dark theme to be used with the Windows 10 light mode and the other way around. In other words, the following two setups weren’t possible:
Windows 10 dark mode + Microsoft Edge light mode
Windows 10 light mode + Microsoft Edge dark mode
A similar issue exists in Google Chrome as well. While the browser can indeed follow the settings of Windows 10 and adapt its UI accordingly, the aforementioned two mixes of light and dark modes aren’t possible.
More recently, however, Microsoft decided to address this drawback, and an update shipped to Microsoft Edge Canary fixes it in the easiest possible way: it introduces a theme switcher that allows users to pick exactly the theme they want in the browser regardless of the operating system settings.
In other words, you can use pretty much any mode you want no matter the configuration that you enabled in Windows 10.
To change the theme in Microsoft Edge on Windows 10, here is the path that you must follow:
Microsoft Edge > Menu > Settings > Appearance > Theme
You can jump from one mode to another from this drop-down menu, and a reboot of the browser is not required.
Most likely, Google Chrome will get a similar theme switcher very soon, especially because users haven’t necessarily received the original implementation of the dark mode too well. And it’s all because they can’t use the dark theme without having the same mode in Windows 10, so hopefully Google heard the feedback and is working on providing users with similar capabilities.
Microsoft Edge is still a work-in-progress, so new features are being added on a regular basis. The preview builds shipped as part of Canary and Dev channels are currently available on Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and macOS, and beta builds for both platforms are expected in the coming months. No word has been said on when the stable release of Microsoft Edge could get the go-ahead, but I’m guessing that this could land by the end of the year.