How to Enable Dark Mode in Safari Mac and iPhone

Enabling Dark Mode (aka Night Mode) is an excellent way to reduce the stress on your eyes at night. If you stare at a bright screen for several hours, it can easily give you headaches and eyestrain. Moreover, it makes you lose focus on the task and your precious sleep at night.

If you use Safari on Apple devices and often use it at night to read, work, or anything. Then you can easily enable the Dark Mode or use any extension. This will help you to avoid headaches and reduce eye strain.

I use dark mode whenever I’m watching a movie online or reading novels and books online. Dark mode helps you if you want to enjoy reading in a dark room.

Related: How to Enable Dark Theme in Chrome Computer browser?

Also, it helps you to save battery, particularly if you have an OLED panel on your laptop. Below, we have provided all the necessary instructions to enable dark mode in Safari Browser on Mac computers and iOS devices.

An extended period of online time on the Safari browser can make you feel tired or put extra strain on your eyes. And if you’re browsing the internet in the dark or at night, this could harm your eyes and result in dark circles.

However, if you keep the brightness down and enable dark mode in the Safari browser, then you can decrease the harmful effects of late-night internet browsing. Also, dark mode will protect you from harmful blue light and other harmful rays your screen might throw at you.

Related: How to Change Background Image on Safari Mac?

Now there are multiple ways by which you can activate dark mode on your safari browser. You can either use the inbuilt dark mode or apply dark mode on your macOS theme base. Here are some step-by-step procedures to enable night mode.

Dark Appearance on macOS

Enabling a dark mode appearance on macOS will also turn the Safari browser into the dark. Any website you visit that supports dark mode will be in Dark skin. However, websites that don’t have support for night mode won’t be in a dark theme.

Here are the steps to enable dark theme mode in the Safari Mac browser:

1. Click to open the Apple menu.
   
2. Select System Preferences…
3. Now, in the System Preferences, click on the General icon.
   
4. In the General settings, besides the Appearance options, select Dark.
   

You will notice that everything in your macOS is dark now; even the Safari browser skin will turn dark. Also, the websites you visit in Safari will turn dark skin if it supports dark theme mode.

Dark Reader Mode on Mac

You can also enable dark mode from the Safari browser to visit websites in dark mode. However, it will only work if the websites you visit have a dark-mode version to browse. But it will work for the most popular websites like Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, etc.

1. Open up Apple Safari on Mac.
2. Visit any webpage you like, say browserhow.com.
3. Click on the reader mode tab at the left of the address bar.
4. After that, click on the aA tab at the right of the address bar, and select Dark from the menu circle under the A section in the top-right.
   

This will load the website page in reader view mode in Safari mac and dark skin color. You can always turn off the dark reader skin by disabling the Show Reader View or Hide Reader View options menu.

Third-Party Extension

Using the default Dark mode of the Safari Browser will not turn every website into Dark Mode. You can use a third-party extension if you want to turn all the websites to be in Dark Mode. Moreover, along with the third-party extension, you will get features like automatically turning on and off Dark Mode, etc.

The recommended extension is the Dark Reader and Night Eye. Night Eye is free to download; however, it costs if you want to utilize all its features. On the other hand, Dark Reader is not free. You must purchase it first to use it.

Both extensions have great reviews and ratings; however, there are other extensions. You can open up the Apple App Store on your Mac device, then search and install an extension to enable night mode in Safari.

Similar to Safari on Mac computers, Apple Safari on iPhone and iPad does support enabling the dark mode. There are two ways to enable dark mode in safari iOS.

Enable Dark Appearance iPhone

This system-wide dark mode support also turns the Safari browser skin into the dark. If you browse through any site supporting the night mode, it will automatically turn into night skin.

Here are the steps to enable the system’s dark appearance on the iPhone and iPad:

1. Open Apple Settings App on the iPhone or iPad.
2. Scroll down and open the Display & Brightness menu.
3. Under the Appearance section, choose the Dark option.
   

This will turn the entire Apple iOS skin into a dim-mode view. This setting will also change the Safari browser app and enable the dark mode on the iPhone.

Dark Reader Mode iPhone

If you are an avid reader, you should consider using the reader’s mode in the safari browser. Within the reader mode, you can choose the dark background skin of the site.

Here are the steps to enable the dim reader view in Safari iOS:

1. Launch the Safari app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Visit the site that you want in Dark mode.
   
3. Tap on the aA button located at the left of the address bar on top,
4. Select the Show Reader View option from the list.
   
5. Again, tap on the aA button and select the Dark color circle at the right.
   

Shortly after, the website will be available in reader view and displayed in dark skin.

Bottom Line: Safari Dark Mode

With dark mode enabled, you can enjoy your nighttime browsing much more efficiently without straining your delicate eyes. If you particularly love watching memes or reading novels at night, then perhaps dark mode is a blessing.

And to be fair, you should always turn on dark mode in the Safari browser when you’re using the internet in a dark room or at night, as such habits will keep your eyes safe from the harmful effects of modern screens.

This way, you can enable the dark appearance or night mode in the safari browser on Mac computers and iPhone/iPad devices.

Similarly, we can also enable dark mode in the Chrome browser. We also have option appearance options within the Google Chrome browser on the computer.