WhatsApp for Android got dark mode feature in beta back in January, and it has been in the works for iOS for more than a year. Now WhatsApp has announced the roll out of dark mode for all the Android and iOS users. This lets users choose from light or dark theme. The dark theme is more like dark gray unlike pure black available in some apps. Chats appear with dark background, and your messages are shown in green bubbles.
WhatsApp said that when designing dark mode it spent time researching and experimenting with a focus on two particular areas:
- Readability: When choosing colors, we wanted to minimize eye fatigue and use colors that are closer to the system defaults on iPhone and Android respectively.
- Information Hierarchy: We wanted to help users easily focus their attention on each screen. We did this by using color and other design elements to make sure the most important information stands out.
Users on Android 10 and iOS 13 can use dark mode by enabling it in system settings. Users on Android 9 and below can go into WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Theme > select ‘Dark’. The WhatsApp for iOS v2.20.303 update also brings new search options that allow you to filter by author and content type. You can download WhatsApp v2.20.65 for Android from the official website, if it is not available for you on Google Play update yet.