macOS Mojave 10.14 brought out system-wide support for a fully functional Dark Mode, a super handy feature that creates a distraction-free working environment on your Mac that’s not just easy on the eyes, but ensures your own content like photos is front and center.
With Light and Dark Mode, Mac customers at long last have a choice between two distinct looks that bring appropriate styling to the critical parts of the Mac user interface.
OS X Yosemite brought limited dark styling to the Dock, the menu bar and Spotlight Search.
Replacing that old and functionally very limited Yosemite feature, Dark Mode in Mojave helps you focus on your work by turning the user interface dark, including your desktop wallpaper.
As a result, your own content, such as photos and documents, really pops out in Dark Mode.
If you tend to do a lot of work on your computer late at night or in a dark room, the new Dark Mode in macOS Mojave can definitely make using your computer a bit easier on the eyes.
To see the stark difference between the familiar Light appearance of your Mac and the new Dark Mode in Mojave for yourself, scroll to the Dark Mode section of Apple’s official macOS Mojave Preview page and drag the interactive slider.
Not all apps look good with a darkened appearance. For instance, newly created documents in TextEdit with their default white background look somewhat out of place. My biggest concern was that not all websites were going to look good with a dark hue, but then I realized that Safari’s Reader Mode with a black background solves this issue in one fell swoop.
How to enable Dark Mode on your Mac
Do the following to have your Mac use a darker appearance.
1) Open System Preferences on your Mac.
2) Click on the icon labeled General.
3) Click the right image next to Appearance to switch on Dark Mode.
Conversely, you can switch back to the default Light appearance by clicking the left image.
This new mode replaces Yosemite’s dark styling option that only worked with the Dock, Spotlight Search and the menu bar. In other words, you can no longer work in the default Light mode while having the Dock and the menu bar rendered with a darker color scheme.
Dark Mode and Dynamic Desktop
Starting with macOS Mojave, Mac customers can take advantage of an awesome feature that plugs nicely into Dark Mode, called Dynamic Desktop. It automatically changes your desktop picture to match the time of day, as determined by Location Services on your Mac.
Found in System Preferences → Desktop & Screen Saver, an all-new dynamic wallpaper in macOS Mojave gradually changes the look of your desktop over the course of the day.
Dark Mode in your favorite apps
Dark Mode works with built-in apps that come with your Mac.
Third-party apps can implement Dark Mode by taking advantage of Apple’s APIs designed to help developers adopt Dark Mode designs. If your favorite app won’t switch to a darkened color scheme after you have enabled Dark Mode, you will need to contact its developer and demand that they support Dark Mode using Apple’s AppKit framework.
