Google Releases Dark Mode for Gmail App on Android

Dark modes are the next big thing in mobile and desktop apps, so everybody’s working on such a visual update regardless of their platform of focus.

Google itself has promised to bring dark mode to Gmail earlier this year, and the Android 10 debut was supposed to witness the introduction of this highly-anticipated feature.

And as it turns out, now that Android 10 is here, so is the dark mode for the Gmail app on Android, as some lucky fellows out there received the update earlier this week.

These posts on reddit suggest that the release of Gmail’s dark mode is taking place in stages, which means that not everyone gets it at the same time.

Rollout happening in stages

The dark theme is integrated in version 2019.08.18.267044774 but requires a server-side switch before showing up. In other words, while this particular version does power the dark mode, it needs to be enabled by Google itself, after which you should see a manual switch in the settings of the app, as presented in the screenshot attached to the article.

No official announcement in this regard is available at the time of writing this article, but one should make the rounds when the rollout of the dark mode reaches a more advanced stage.

For now, the light theme is the only one available on the majority of phones, so sit tight and wait for Google to enable the dark mode on your device as well.

Once it goes live, you’ll be able to choose between light and dark, but also enable a system setting that basically follows the mode that you configured in Android. This should help create more consistency on your Android phone, as the Gmail appearance will come in line with the one used at OS level.