The Android night mode
You can easily enable the dark mode on Android phones by using the Dark Mode app that I developed. You can download it on Google Play.
This article explains how the Dark Mode app and Android night mode work.
Google introduced a functionality called night mode for Android phones with the release of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) in 2013.
This functionality helps Android app developers to easily make their apps support both night and day mode.
With the introduction of the Android night mode, Google added a night mode setting to Android phones that can be set to:
- Night mode
- Day mode
- Auto mode
The Auto mode will automatically set the night mode to either Day mode in the morning or Night mode in the evening.
Android 9 (Pie) and below:
You can use the Dark Mode app to change the night mode on all Android phones running at least Android 2.3.
Just open the Dark Mode app and choose the Night mode.
Android 10 or later:
On phones running Android 10 or later you can usually change the night mode in the phone's system settings.
The location in the system settings differs depending on your phone manufacturer. Usually you can find it in the Display section (Settings -> Display -> Dark Theme).
On One Plus devices, for example, this option is hidden in the Customization segment of the system settings (Settings -> Customization -> Tone).
In 2013, not many Android app developers knew how to support the dark mode and even fewer users asked for it. Since this option was not included in the phone's system settings previously, the popularity of the Android night mode has skyrocketed in 2019 with the release of Android 10. With the increasing demand for apps that have a dark theme, more and more apps like Instagram have started supporting it.
Hopefully, this trend continues in 2021 and results in a lot of great apps with a night theme.