It’s been a long time coming, but today Google finally introduced dark mode support to its most popular Android office apps, Docs, Papers, and Slides.
If you have an Andriod 10 device or later, it will automatically work if you have activated the Dark Theme on your phone, which you can do by going to ‘Settings’ on your device, pressing ‘Display’ and then ‘Theme.’
Alternatively, you can enable or disable the individual app feature by opening the app, taping the menu button at the top left, selecting ‘Settings,’ and then ‘Choose theme.’ You can manually set the app to light or dark, or simply follow the phone’s system theme.
For many users, the dark theme is easier on your eyes; it’s nice not to have a full white light blasting your retinas when you’re working late into the night. Or maybe you’d prefer to see how it looks – we don’t judge.
But while dark mode may be good when working on a file, you don’t actually want to view the file that way. You can preview a document in the light theme without having to change your settings entirely. When you open the document that you want to display, tap the ‘more’ button on the top right and pick the ‘view in the light theme’ button to get a peek of what you will see while viewing the document.
Dark mode is starting today, but it can take a few weeks until it’s available on everyone’s phones. Unfortunately, the feature is currently only available to Android users. There’s no word on when it comes to iOS or desktop, but I suppose it’s just a matter of time.