7 popular iPhone apps with hidden dark modes, and how to turn them on

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Dark mode — or night mode, or dark theme — is a feature inside an app's settings that lets you switch an app's primary background color to black, gray, or navy blue.

For some people, switching over to dark mode is an aesthetic preference. For others, it's a way to save your eyes at night.

Smartphone users have been clamoring for more dark-mode options for years. iPhone users have a version of it called smart invert, which turns your screen black and alters some colors, but smart invert is actually an accessibility setting intended for those who are vision impaired, and it doesn't work exactly like a true dark mode.

Android users aren't much better off. Last month, a Google forum post seemed to suggest that Google was preparing to release a dark mode, but the company later denied its plans to add an overall dark mode to Android.

So for now, we'll have to rely on individual apps to give us a dark mode. Luckily, a few of them already do.

Here are the most popular iPhone apps that have dark mode — and how to turn it on:

YouTube

YouTube just got dark mode in March. To turn it on, open up the YouTube app and tap your photo in the upper right corner. Then go to Settings > Dark theme.

Twitter

To turn on Twitter's dark mode, tap your photo at the upper left corner of the app. Then tap Settings and privacy > Display and sound > Night mode.