Apple first introduced system-wide dark mode support with macOS Mojave and popularized it a year later with iOS 13. At this point, the most commonly used apps have generally adopted the feature, but not websites. While Safari offers a built-in Reader view that can force dark mode on most pages, it is usually limited to articles and often hides essential web elements like videos.
As a night owl who frequently browses the web during late hours, light-mode sites used to irritate my eyes. That was until I came across Dark Reader—an open-source, cross-platform Safari extension that solves this problem once and for all.
Dark Reader is available on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS as a one-time $5 purchase for all of your devices. The App Store listing also indicates that it runs on visionOS, albeit not as a native client. I’ve been using Dark Reader on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air for a couple of years, and it works exactly as advertised.
Dark Reader has a variety of themes that can be customized for specific websites.
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To get started, download the app on your devices and launch it to view the instructions. You can then enable it and customize the experience using the Extensions settings (Safari>Settings>Extensions on a Mac; Settings>Apps>Safari>Extensions on an iPhone/iPad). The feature set is similar across iOS and iPadOS, letting you opt for a unified look on all of your iDevices. Meanwhile, the macOS edition includes deeper adjustments that accommodate larger screens.
What I love about Dark Reader is its support for granular controls that are both advanced and easy to grasp. On all platforms, you get to pick between over a dozen themes that dictate which dark hue should be applied as the website’s background, as well as the text color. These include black, gray, beige, burgundy, brown, and more. If none of them match your expectations, you can also build and apply your own theme. Once set up, the theme will automatically be applied to all websites.
Dark Reader lets you customize website elements beyond just light and dark mode.
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Other Dark Reader perks include a website allow list for selective use and native dark mode detection that prioritizes the website’s default implementation over the forced one. The extension can optionally dim web images, too, and supports hot keys for quick actions.
It’s worth noting that Dark Reader also offers its extension for certain third-party desktop web browsers, including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox. So, if you’re not using Safari on your Mac, you can head to the respective web browser extension store and download Dark Reader to achieve the same result.
Author: Mahmoud Itani, Contributor, Macworld
For a decade, Mahmoud has rigorously evaluated Apple hardware and software. His current technological arsenal features an iPhone 16 Pro Max, Apple Watch Series 9, MacBook Air M2, iPad Air M1, AirPods Pro 2, AirTag, Apple TV 4K 3, and HomePod Mini stereo pair. Outside of work, you’ll likely find him jogging at a park, swimming in open water, brainstorming at a coffeehouse, composing poetry on a rooftop, or merely lost in nature.