3 Ways to Enable Dark Mode in iOS 13

Updated Aug 15,2019 | by Cody

Dark Mode is probably the most anticipated feature in iOS and finally, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system iOS 13 finally brings a Dark Mode for your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Keep reading to know everything you should know about Dark Mode in iOS 13.

When you turn on Dark Mode, the white interface elements of iOS turn to black or deep gray. The text will be a brighter color, so you can see them clearly. That means that content is more friendly for your eyes. The Dark Mode on your iOS device looks cool and disturb others around you less especially when they are sleeping.

Dark Mode may improve your battery life, but Apple hasn’t addressed anything about battery life savings with Dark Mode, even on OLED-based iPhones.

Apple also allows third-party developers to use the Dark Mode API to optimize their apps, so not only the built-in apps like Mail and Messages, but also the entire iOS eco-system can have Dark Mode.

The Dark Mode is only available in iOS 13. You can now install iOS 13 beta or wait for the iOS 13 public release, which is rumored in September 2019.

After you install iOS 13, there are a few ways to turn on Dark Mode. The most convenient way to enable Dark Mode is via Control Center.

Step 1. Swipe download from the upper-right corner of your screen to open Control Center.

Step 2. Press and hold down on the Brightness indicator until a full-screen interface pops up.

Step 3. From the full-screen interface, tap on the Appearance: Light in the lower left to turn on Dark Mode immediately.

Now you can see the lower-lefts Appearance: Dark. You can always press it to turn off Dark Mode.

You can also turn on Dark Mode through the Settings app. It is also easy to get it done from Settings. Just navigate to Settings > Display & Brightness. From the top screen, you will see the Light and Dark option. Just tap on Dark and then you are in Dark Mode.

Below that, there is a toggle option for Automatic that allows you to switch from Light Mode to Dark Mode automatically. When you toggle it on, you iPhone or iPad will automatically switch to Dark Mode on sunset and switch to Light mode on the sunrise, which is pretty cool.

You can also set up a custom schedule to switch between Dark Mode and Light Mode. You can just tab on the Options section below the Automatic toggle and select Custom in the next screen. In a new screen, you can configure when you’d like for activate Dark Mode or Light Mode.

By default, Light Mode is set to be enabled at 7:00 a.m. and Dark Mode is set to be enabled at 10:00 p.m.

As you may know, iOS 13 also brings a huge update to the Shortcuts app by adding the automation section. With this feature, you can set up your iOS device to change the wallpaper on schedule or on a specific event automatically.

This pre-made shortcut, Light & Dark Wallpaper, allows you to set the wallpaper for light and a separate one for dark mode. You can get this shortcut by opening the link with Safari. If you like the automation, you can open the Shortcuts app and create an automation task to run this shortcut on schedule.

That’s all the methods to activate Dark Mode on iOS 13 for iPhone or iPad. If you don’t want to update to iOS 13 or your device is not supported, there is a workaround to turn on Dark Mode on iOS 12 or even previous versions.

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