The final darkening: Android might soon let you force dark mode onto all apps

The eternal fight between light and dark may have just ended, and darkness won. At least on Android.

According to Android Authority, there's a hidden setting in an Android 14 beta that was released in January, allowing you to "make all apps dark."

Yes, this means users should be able to force all apps into dark mode, even those which don't natively support it, thus making the darkening of their Android phones complete. As a long-time dark mode connoisseur, I use it whenever possible, and I avert my eyes in pain from any app that blinds me with anything lighter than a very dark grey.

The setting, which resides in Settings -> System -> Developer option, is described as follows: "Applies to apps without their own dark theme. Some apps may have display issues, like inverted colors."

This is similar to an existing developer option that also applies a dark theme to all apps, but developers can opt out of that one. Likewise, there's an option to invert colors in the Accessibility settings, but that one often has odd results.

The new setting looks to be something intended for users, not developers, and it has better results, though according to Android Authority, which has a gallery of apps with forcefully applied dark mode, it's still not perfect.

The feature isn't available in the latest Android 15 beta, but it's likely to show up in a future release, possibly during Google I/O 2024, scheduled for May 14.