It is not a Wikipedia policy or guideline; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect varying levels of consensus.
Appearance dropdown menu in the personal tools section at the top right, used to switch between dark and light mode.
A light-on-dark color scheme, colloquially known as dark mode or night mode, has been available on Wikipedia's desktop and mobile websites since July 2024. These are available to both logged-out and logged-in users using the Vector 2022 skin, which is applied by default. Logged-in users who have changed their skin must switch to Vector 2022 in order to use dark mode. The Wikipedia mobile apps also have similar features.
A dark mode feature is available since July 2024 for the default Vector 2022 (desktop) and Minerva (mobile) skins:
On desktop click the Dark radio button on the right side of the screen or under the spectacles icon in the top right.
On mobile, tap the "hamburger menu" in the top left, choose settings, and in the Color section select Dark.
For both, you can also select "Automatic" to have the mode change based on your operating system's settings.
Desktop dark mode setting
Desktop dark mode setting (on smaller screens, or when menu has been hidden)
Finding mobile dark mode setting (1)
Finding mobile dark mode setting (2)
Finding mobile dark mode setting (3)
Mobile apps
The official Wikipedia mobile apps for Android and iOS have multiple themes available, including light-on-dark.
Wikipedia Android app white theme
Wikipedia Android app sepia theme
Wikipedia Android app dark theme
Wikipedia Android app black theme
Browser extensions
There are browser extensions for popular browsers that offer a Wikipedia-specific dark mode, and browser extensions that allow you to set custom CSS for a given domain, which could be used with the CSS available above. However, all browser extensions need to be carefully screened for security issues. Some inject advertising, and customization may be more difficult than editing a single CSS file.
There are several add-on/extension offerings on Firefox which work well. The most popular is Dark Mode for Wikipedia which uses only a single css style sheet to enable dark mode on Wikipedia. Do not install any extension or add-on that you don't trust.
Browser settings
If you use Chrome, there is also a built-in experimental/beta setting to force dark mode, set through chrome://flags/ with the description "Force Dark Mode for Web Contents - Automatically render all web contents using a dark theme". This is provided by Chrome's development team, so security should not be a concern, but this will render all web pages in dark mode. This feature is also available in Microsoft Edge, through the edge://flags/ menu.
Options for non-default skins
WikimediaUI Dark mode gadget
There are two Gadgets that can be enabled in Preferences:
Once checked, dark mode is available to toggle in the preferences portlet, located in the Upper Right-Hand corner of the page. The link to click is named "Dark mode", and is to the left of the "Watchlist" link.
Apart from gadgets, an alternative way to get a dark mode is adding custom CSS to your user style page(s). This is more complex than activating a gadget, but more flexible, allowing, for example: custom colors, custom fonts, or hiding unused UI elements. Help:User style describes the process of adding custom CSS in general. For dark mode-specific CSS, a number of options are available including:
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