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What Google's Android Q dark mode means for all your other apps

It isn't just your home screen that goes dark.

Jessica Dolcourt Senior Director, Commerce & Content Operations
Jessica Dolcourt is a passionate content strategist and veteran leader of CNET coverage. As Senior Director of Commerce & Content Operations, she leads a number of teams, including Commerce, How-To and Performance Optimization. Her CNET career began in 2006, testing desktop and mobile software for Download.com and CNET, including the first iPhone and Android apps and operating systems. She continued to review, report on and write a wide range of commentary and analysis on all things phones, with an emphasis on iPhone and Samsung. Jessica was one of the first people in the world to test, review and report on foldable phones and 5G wireless speeds. Jessica began leading CNET's How-To section for tips and FAQs in 2019, guiding coverage of topics ranging from personal finance to phones and home. She holds an MA with Distinction from the University of Warwick (UK).
Expertise Content strategy, team leadership, audience engagement, iPhone, Samsung, Android, iOS, tips and FAQs.
Jessica Dolcourt
2 min read
android-q

Google has a dark side.

James Martin/CNET

The next version of Google's mobile software, called Android Q, is going to get a dark mode -- officially called dark theme -- that turns your white screen to black and black text white, helping make bright screens easier on the eye at night. Dark mode is already popular in apps, and by embracing it as an optional theme you can turn on and off at the system level, it can potentially act as a master switch for your other dark mode apps. 

That's because when you turn on dark theme in the next version of Android, it isn't just the home screen and app drawer that goes dark. Apps, like the calendar, will also fade to black when you toggle into the mode. In addition, developers can start triggering Google's dark theme in their own apps if they'd like. 

"Everyone can relate to being in a room where the lights are turned down and you've got this white screen blinding you. And this idea of just being able to push a button and have it be easier to read," said Sameer Samat, Google's VP of product management for Android and Play, during an interview last week at  Google I/O

When you turn on the theme, app makers that don't have a dedicated dark mode can get one from Google by letting Android Q invert the black and whites to take advantage of an automatic dark theme they don't have to program on their own. 

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App-makers that do have a dedicated dark mode can also hitch to Google's wagon so that turning on Android Q's dark theme will also turn on their own dark mode. That saves you from having to turn on Dark Theme in Android Q and then going into individual apps to turn on their own dark modes. The idea is that you press one button to do it all.

But there's one more benefit, too: battery savings.

"There are few things that get you battery savings for 'free,'" Samat said. "Lighting up fewer OLED pixels will get you farther in the day."

Google says that while it will keep tuning its dark theme settings, dark theme won't replace your bright white daytime screen mode any time soon, especially when bright white screens are still the easiest to read outdoors in sunlight.

Requests for an Android dark mode began appearing in user requests with Android 8.0 Oreo, Samat said, referring to Google's phone OS from 2017. 

Watch this: Android Q beta: What's new?

"Originally, we just through it was super geeky folks like ourselves who wanted it. The data we're seeing is much more broad based than that," said Samat.

In Android Q, you can trigger dark theme two different ways: by pressing the button for battery-saving mode from the slide-down  quick control menu, or by turning it on in the display settings.

Originally published May 12 at 4 a.m. PT.