Google Chrome – How to Enable Dark Mode on Chrome for Windows 7

dark modegoogle-chromewindows 7

How can I enable dark mode on Chrome on Windows 7 SP1 x64 Ultimate so that the contextual menu is dark and not white?

I'd like to mark dark such as:

enter image description here

I unsuccessfully tried:

  • chrome://flags/ : #enable-force-dark
  • Dark Reader Chrome extension

Example:

enter image description here

Best Answer

How can I enable dark mode on Chrome on Windows 7 SP1 x64 Ultimate so that the contextual menu is dark and not white?

What you want is not possible on Windows 7. Google Chrome only actually supports Dark Mode due to the underline support in Windows and macOS. This supported was added in Chrome 74 and Chrome 73 respectfully. While Google Chrome 74 does have an override, it's not intended to work on Windows 7, since Windows 7 does not have a Dark Mode.

Ultimately, the reason the context menu is Light instead of Dark, is due to the fact Windows is responsible for generating the right-click context menu. All Chrome 74 does, is respects the current setting or allows the user to override the system setting, Windows otherwise handles the rest.

Due to the fact, Windows is responsible for generating the right context menu, it won't be possible for a Chrome extension to change the color of the context menu.

Google indicates the requirements for Dark Mode are the following:

Note: Dark Mode is available on:

  • Mac OS 10.14 and up.
  • Windows 10 and up.

Source: Browse in dark mode or Dark theme

I am confirming one observation, it appears that Google will be adding Windows 11 context menus as a experimental flag, while it’s running on Windows 11. This means that Chrome, is at least partially responsible, for the look and feel of the context menu within Chrome. This might explain the reason Brave does have the capability to change the color of the context menu.

However, I stand by my statement, Google Chrome implemented it’s support based on setting within Windows.

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