Summary
People who prefer Dark Mode tend toreallyprefer Dark Mode. It’s easier on the eyes, especially when you’re scrolling late into the night. But not every app supports dark mode, and that can be frustrating. Android is working on that.
Earlier this month,Google introduced the Canary channel for Android builds, and it just dropped the second release. Tucked away in the settings is a new option that dark mode lovers will be very happy to see. Previously, the “Dark Theme” settings only let you schedule when dark mode kicks in. Now, there are two distinct modes: “Standard” and “Expanded.”
“Standard” mode is exactly what you’d expect—it applies a dark theme across your device and to all the apps that actually support it. The cool feature, though, is in the new “Expanded” mode. This forces a dark theme on more apps, even those stubborn ones that don’t natively offer it.
It’s worth noting this isn’t just a basic color inversion, which is also an option that’sbeen around forever. Android’s new “Expanded” dark mode is a lot smarter than that. It won’t just flip all the colors, which can make images look wild and unreadable. Mishaal Rahman notes it’s more like the “override force-dark” toggle that’s been available inDeveloper Options, but it’s more effective.
Google seems to be readying this “Expanded” dark mode as an accessibility feature. While it’s designed to make your phone experience more comfortable, some apps might not cooperate perfectly. There will almost certainly be visual quirks and appearance issues here and there because you’re forcing something the app wasn’t designed for. The text under the setting recommends switching back to “Standard” dark mode if there are problems.
This isn’t the first time Google has enabled a similar feature in one of its products. For a while now, there’s been a flag in Chrome thatforces all websites into a dark theme. It also doesn’t work perfectly all the time, but that’s the nature of these “hacks.” If you want dark mode for everything, you’ll need to live with some quirks.
While “Expanded” dark mode is live in the Android Canary build right now, there’s obviously word on when it’ll hit the Beta or Stable channels. Google may wait for a big update to include it in, like the second quarterly release of Android 16 at the end of 2025. It’s also possible this remains a hidden thing forever, like the Chrome flag. If you’re brave enough, you can try out the Canary build right now.
