Because there’s no easy way to do this right now

May 6, 2019 10:48 GMT  ·  By

Google Chrome 74 brings a highly-anticipated feature to Windows 10: the browser now features a dark mode, just like the macOS sibling.

Dark themes are particularly successful these days, pretty much because they are easier on the eye in the evening or during the night.

And because Google Chrome is the leading browser on both the desktop and mobile, it’s a no-brainer that the application should come with such an option.

It was better late than never for Google Chrome, as the search giant is one of the last browser developers to introduce a dark mode. For example, Microsoft Edge (the original version, not the new one running on Chromium), already comes with such an option, despite not being as successful as Google’s rival.

The biggest problem with Google Chrome’s dark theme isn’t necessarily the way it looks – because yes, that’s a problem too, as this visual style lacks the modern refinements users expected – but the fact that it’s dependent on the Windows 10 theme.

This means that in order to use the dark theme in Google Chrome you need to enable the dark theme in Windows 10 as well. If you want to stick with the default Chrome looks, just switch to the light visual style in the operating system.

While this makes a lot of sense for those who want nothing more than a super-consistent experience across Windows 10, the more frustrating thing is that Google doesn’t allow users to disable the dark theme without turning off the dark mode in the operating system. So if you want a mix of a dark theme in Windows and standard look in Chrome, you can’t have it.

Google hasn’t included a toggle to make this happen, albeit I expect the company to introduce such an option at some point in the future.

The dark theme in Google Chrome 74 on Windows 10

Meanwhile, users have come across a solution that fixes this, even though it’s not exactly the most straightforward workaround. But the good thing is that it exists, so can finally get the old Google Chrome looks on a Windows 10 system with the dark theme enabled.

The first thing you should do is to create a shortcut for Google Chrome. To do this, head over to the location of Google Chrome on your device, right-click chrome.exe > Send to > Desktop. If you used the default path, Google Chrome should be installed at the following location:


C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
Once the shortcut is created, head over to the desktop, right-click it > Properties. What you need to do is edit the Target field and add the --disable-features=DarkMode parameter. This means that the Target field should eventually look like this (again, if you used the default install location for Google Chrome):
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --disable-features=DarkMode
Remember that in order to have the dark theme disabled in the browser, you must launch the browser from this shortcut exclusively.
The Target field of Google Chrome

Most likely, Google will add a toggle to make the whole thing easier in a future update, but for the time being, the company hasn’t even confirmed that it’s working on such a feature.

According to the official schedule, the next version of the browser is Google Chrome 75, which is due on June 4. If Google is indeed planning to bring the dark mode/light mode toggle in this version, expect the Canary build to get it at some point in the future.

Meanwhile, you can just turn to the trick here to disable the dark theme. Once Google’s releases this feature, you can simply remove the added parameter from the shortcut.

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Google Chrome 74 brings a dark theme to Windows 10
The dark theme in Google Chrome 74 on Windows 10The Target field of Google Chrome
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