So many apps and websites these days have dark mode that it’s a bit jarring when one doesn’t. While most of Google’s products offer dark mode (Gmail offers a ton of customizable themes), the company has continued to leave users of many of its web apps in the, well, light. That is, at least, until now: Google Drive has dark mode, people.
According to Android Police, Google has been working on this rollout for about a month, starting with a limited release. As of Tuesday, however, it should now be rolling out to all users, although it might take until May 1 for all users to see it. As part of that rollout, Google is prompting users about the change with a pop-up that reads “New! Dark mode: Continue to enjoy Drive in the dark.” When you receive the pop-up, you’ll be able to easily change your Drive theme from Light to Dark, or to Device, which will set Drive’s theme to whichever theme your machine is currently set to.
Depending on when you’re seeing this post, however, you might not see this pop-up, and, without it, you may never know Google Drive actually added dark mode as a feature. That’s because there’s no obvious toggle or option for dark mode when you’re using Drive, like some web apps have. If you want to find the option, you’ll need to click the setting gear at the top of the page, hit Settings, then look for Appearance. Here, you’ll find the same three theme options as the pop-up: Light, Dark, and Device default.
Google Drive on mobile already matches your system theme. You can change this option in the settings menu of your Google Drive app on Android, while on iOS, Drive will always match your system theme. That’s fine for people like me who use light mode during the day and dark mode at night, but it’d be nice to have some control for Drive users on iPhone.
Now that Google Drive won’t blind us when we’re accessing our files at night, it’d be great to see some other Google apps join the fray. If I could check my schedule on Google Calendar or type up some notes in Google Docs with the same dark theme as my computer, that’d be great.