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How To Enable WhatsApp Dark Mode on Android
Dark Mode for Whatsapp is now available on Android, and this is how to activate it…
Dark Mode for Whatsapp was, perhaps, the #1 most-wanted feature by Android phone users in 2019. Apple’s iPhone has had Dark Mode for a while now, thanks to 2019’s iOS 13 release, but the Android equivalent took a little longer to happen – you need Android 10 for it to work across the board.
The good news with Dark Mode for Whatsapp for Android is that you don’t need Android 10 to make it work, though it helps because it’ll match the rest of your phone’s UX if you have Android’s Dark Mode enabled.
In this guide, we’ll show you in just several steps how to enable Dark Mode in WhatsApp – please note you’ll need the latest beta of WhatsApp for Android to make this work!
How To Turn On Whatsapp Dark Mode For Android
- Open WhatsApp
- Tap the three-dot icon in the top right corner
- Open Settings > Chats > Themes
- Inside Themes, Open Choose Themes and select Dark
- Boom! You now have WhatsApp Dark Mode enabled
I Can’t See Dark Mode In WhatsApp For Android?
Dark Mode for WhatsApp on Android is only available in beta at the moment; you need to be running version 2.20.14 of the app to access Dark Mode in Themes. If you’re not running that version, you might have to wait a while for Dark Mode to come to your phone. But don’t worry it’s coming soon. Or, you can download it here. Personally, I’d just wait – betas can be VERY buggy.
Does It Make Much Difference?
Not really, although it does look really cool with WhatsApp’s use of green color accents – green on black is always a nice combination! It is a little easier on your eyes, so if you spend hours using WhatsApp every day, chances are your eyes won’t feel quite as strained.
Dark Mode uses less battery, though, hence its inclusion on iOS and Android. In order to reap the battery benefits of Dark Mode, however, you will need to run a phone with an OLED or AMOLED display. Why? Because OLED panels, when displaying dark pixels, do not use any power, and this, in turn, means around 30% less battery drain throughout a typical day’s worth of usage.
30% isn’t a great deal, but over a week it adds up to hours of extra uptime on your phone. This is one of the #1 reasons to buy phones with OLED displays. OLED displays also look better too, and while OLED iPhones aren’t cheap (even the iPhone 11 doesn’t have OLED), with Android you can pick up OLED-display-using phones like the Google Pixel 3a and OnePlus 7T for more than 50-60% less than the price of an iPhone 11.
There’s a reason we included the Google Pixel 3a so high in our guide to the best Android phones for 2019/20…
And check out How To End-To-End Encrypt WhatsApp Backups! And take a look at How To Make Your Sent WhatsApp Messages Disappear!