How-To

How to Enable Dark Mode on Google Keep and Calendar

By Brian Burgess

Published May 24, 2019

Google this week announced it is rolling out a new dark mode for its Calendar and Keep apps on Android. Here is a look at how to enable it on your phone or tablet.

Dark modes continue to gain in popularity. The darker themes are easier on your eyes and they just look cool. But there is more to it. Using an app’s dark mode can improve the battery life of your phone or tablet. Google recently confirmed dark mode increases battery life on devices with OLED displays. Each pixel has less work to do with dark areas of the screen versus bright and vibrant colors.

Google this week announced that a new dark mode is now coming to Google Calendar and Google Keep on Android phones and tablets. Here’s a look at how you can enable it on your device.

Enable Dark Mode for Google Keep and Calendar on Android

Turning on the dark mode for Google Keep is straight-forward. On your phone or tablet, launch the app and head to Settings and flip on the “Enable Dark Theme” switch.

To turn on dark mode for Google Calendar, launch the app and head to Settings > General > Theme to turn it on there.

If you don’t see the option, keep in mind you need to be running the supported version of Android. Then make sure your apps are up-to-date on your device. To check for updates, open the Play Store app and tap the menu and then My apps & games > Updates and check for updates. If you still don’t see it, you might need to wait a week or two. Google says it’s a gradual rollout with Calendar starting on May 16^th and Keep starting on May 20^th.

If you’re an Apple user, unfortunately, there isn’t a dark mode option available for these apps on iOS yet. However, you can get a similar result by turning on the Smart Invert feature. This is a workaround of sorts that gives you a makeshift get a dark theme on your iPhone or iPad.