Google Search could soon respect your desktop’s system-wide dark theme

Google’s desktop Search dark theme remains in testing.

What you need to know

• Google has been testing a system-wide dark theme for desktop Search for a couple of months now.
• In a new test, Search now respects the system theme.
• Google has still yet to announce a timeline for the Search’s dark theme rollout.

Google has been testing a dark theme for the desktop Search over the last few months. In a new A/B test spotted by 9to5Google (which we were unable to replicate), the company will let Search align with your computer’s system-wide dark mode. It’s a similar execution to that offered by YouTube and can be accessed by navigating to Search settings if you have it. It’ll also make using more eye-friendly Search more intuitive as you won’t have to toggle on dark theme by default, it’lll just work.

When the dark theme rolls out, it will be similar in design to Google’s other dark themes. This means to expect lots of grey with dark blue rather than a Jet Black AMOLED theme.

While desktop apps and sites used to offer their own discrete theme settings, more are choosing to plug into the controls offered by operating systems for an overall cohesive experience. Windows and macOS both have system-wide dark themes. Chrome OS has it, albeit in testing.

As for Google, it offers dark theme on the web for some apps, we already mentioned YouTube, but Keep, Gmail and others now come with dark themes. However, a greater number of apps including Calendar, Photos, and Maps do not offer dark themes. While their mobile apps do, this doesn’t carry over to the desktop. Hopefully, as Google continues rolling this out across this product line, it reaches them sooner rather than later.