Those of us who spend a lot of time in front of our computer screen do experience certain degrees of computer eye strain. Fortunately, for Windows and macOS Mojave users, the two companies (Microsoft and Apple) have taken note of the health effect staring at their devices’ screen is having on us, and have baked in the dark mode feature in their operating system.
While in dark mode the blinding whitish GUI of some Windows app turns black or greyish in color, making it easier for your eyes to keep staring at as you work. Microsoft was the first to release the dark mode to its Windows 10 OS, and Apple just made the announcement during the WWDC 2018 conference.
Unfortunately for Apple fans, this article is going to delve into only how to make dark mode turn on at night and off during the day automatically on Windows PCs. With the dark mode on, certain native apps on Windows 10 such as Microsoft Store, Edge Browser, Calendar, Mail, and Settings windows become black.
To enable dark mode manually, go to Settings > Personalization > Colors > Choose your default app mode and select Dark.
The tip above will enable dark mode all the time, but what if you want it just at night and you won’t want to be digging into the Settings every time at night when you want it on?
How to automate Dark Mode On at Night and Off at Daytime
Go to the search bar near the start key on Windows 10 and type ‘task scheduler.’ The app will appear in the results, click it to open the program.
Go to the program menu and click on Action > Create Basic Task
Enter the name you will like the task to be called (as you can see below, I named min Automate Dark Mode). Then click on Next.
Under the When do you want the task to start?, check on Daily and hit the Next button.
Leave out the start date as you find it, and then fill the time you would like the Dark Mode to be automatically enabled, and hit the Next button. There’s also the Synchronize across time zones checkbox, for people who travel a lot with their computers to different time zones around the world.
Then under the Action on the left panel, click on the Start a program checkbox and hit Next.
Under the Program/Script field, type in Reg. Then go to the Add arguments field, and then copy-past the following text
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize /
Click on Finish
Please note, if your computer is not on at the designated time for automatic dark mode to turn on, it will not be turned on when you turn on the computer later. Not unless you ensure that the Open the Properties dialog for this task when I click Finish is checked.
Disabling Dark Mode during daytime
You will need to create a second scheduled task that undo what the steps above does at specific time. You can put the time at which the task runs at 8AM in the morning everyday, and the task scheduler will automatically disable dark mode in the morning.
Open Task Scheduler (simply follow the steps shown above), and on the program menu, click on Action > Create Basic Task. Enter the name of the task (It could be something like Automate Disable Dark Mode) and click on Next.
Under the When do you want the task to start?, check on Daily and click on Next. You will still leave the start date as is, and the set your preferred time for turning off the dark mode. In my case I chose 8AM in the morning. You can check the Synchronize across time zones if you travel a lot with your laptop.
Under the Action option on the left panel, click on Start a program checkbox and hit Next.
Under the Program/Script field, type in Reg and in the Add arguments field copy and past the following
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize /v Ap
