In March 2019, WhatsApp was reportedly working on a new Dark Mode feature for Android users. Facebook has since then been dropping hints on the new Dark Mode feature for it popular Messaging app, and already added this feature to its Messenger and Instagram app for Android. This feature however, never came to WhatsApp, and at a time, the Dark theme was forced enabled on Android 10 device but the option to enable this was still no present on the app.
Now, WhatsApp is rollling out the dark theme option in the latest beta update or Android users. You can easily get the dark theme on your WhatsApp by navigating to the app settings, then tap on the chat settings and then select dark theme from the theme section.
The new dark theme however, isn’t completely dark, like the real dark theme you’d expect like that of Facebook’s messenger app, it uses a dark grey theme and although this won’t contribute to saving battery even on Amoled screen, it makes chatting on WhatsApp a lot more comfortable for the eyes.
How to Enable Dark Mode On WhatsApp
- First off, update your app to the latest WhatsApp beta version (v.2.20.13) from Google PlayStore
- Once you’ve updated your app, jump to settings
- In the app settings, tap on chat settings and you’ll find a new theme option
- Tap on the theme option and you’ll get 3 modes to choose from, system default, light and dark
- Now select dark mode.
Once dark mode is turn on, the device theme will switch from the default white theme to a dark grey theme and text will also chage from black to white. For those running Android 9 or 10 which already comes with a system-wide dark mode feature, you don’t neccessarily need to enable the option from the app, if you have dark mode enabled on your device already, the app will adjust the theme to match your current mode.
If you’re not a beta tester, you simply have to wait or the feature to roll out globally for all users once it gets out of beta. For now, only beta users can enable the dark theme on WhatsApp. If you’re running the beta version of WhatsApp and haven’t received the new update, you can simply download and install from apkmirror.