Google Search on desktop web officially gets a dark theme

Abner Li | Sep 9 2021 - 4:41 pm PT

In May of last year, Google officially rolled out a night mode for the Search apps on Android and iOS. Google.com on desktop web is now officially getting its dark theme.

Open settings (at the bottom of the homepage or in the top-right of a results page) and you’ll see “Appearance” at the end of the menu. That will take you to Search Settings > Appearance with the ability to select:

Device default
Dark theme
Light theme

This dark gray background will appear wherever you’re signed in with your Google Account on desktop:

Search pages include the Google homepage, search results page, and Search settings, among others.

You might also get a banner in Search results, while some have spotted a sun icon in the top-right corner to quickly enable/disable. In announcing, Google acknowledged user requests for this feature, and said the Search dark theme would be fully available in the coming weeks:

I’m thrilled to announce that starting today & fully rolling out over the next few weeks, Dark theme is now available for Google Search pages on desktop. Thank you for all your feedback on this forum letting us know that this was a feature you wanted to see!

This feature is also being tested for mobile, but that’s not part of today’s announcement. For some, opening the navigation drawer shows a “Dark mode” item that takes them to the same menu. However, what you set on desktop does not sync to mobile.