How to Enable the Dark Theme in Chromium-Based Microsoft Edge Browser

The new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser isn’t officially available for download, but as I told you not a long time ago, a leaked build lets us try out the application before the public launch.

What’s important to know if you decide to download this version is that the new Edge browser is still in the development stage, so this particular build here is still an experimental release.

In other words, while you can try out the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge in anticipation of the public release, many things could change by the time Microsoft gives the go-ahead.

As several users who installed this Microsoft Edge preview discovered, the browser comes with a more refined look and features inspired by Google Chrome. But at the same time, it lacks some features that were previously available in the EdgeHTML-based Edge.

One of them is a dark mode. Microsoft originally promised that the look and feel of the original Edge would be retained in the Chromium-based sibling, so the company is obviously working on migrating the dark visual style as well.

And while it’s not yet available in this preview version of the browser, you can actually enable it thanks to a dedicated flag that you can find in the advanced configuration screen. Since Edge now runs on Chromium, enabling and disabling flags in the browser works just like on Google Chrome, so here’s what you need to do to enable the dark theme in this build.

First and foremost, you need to launch the flags screen. And to do this, type the following code in the address bar:

“Use a light or dark theme (based on OS preferences) in your browser – Mac, Windows”

As a side note, the description of the flag also serves a living confirmation that Microsoft is working on a Mac version of the new Chromium-based browser.

In Microsoft Edge, this flag is set to Default, so you’ll just have to switch it to Enable to activate the dark theme. A browser reboot is required to save the settings.

What you need to know is that this setting is tied to the system settings in Windows 10, so you need to activate the dark theme in the operating system as well to be able to use it in Microsoft Edge.

To do this, you need to launch the Settings app on Windows 10 and navigate to the following path:

By the time Microsoft Edge reaches the final development stage, I expect Microsoft to implement a more straightforward theme switcher, so you should technically be able to enable the behavior described here much easier right from the Settings screen.

For now, however, there’s no ETA as to when the final build is projected to go live, and the only thing we can speculate at the moment is that a preview release is just around the corner.