How to Add Dark Mode to Your WordPress Admin Dashboard

Do you want to add dark mode to your WordPress admin dashboard?

A darker color scheme can make it easier to work later in the day or in low-light conditions, by reducing the white light coming from your screen.

In this article, we’ll show you how to add dark mode to the WordPress admin dashboard.

What Is Dark Mode and Why Add it to Your Website?

If you often work on your WordPress website late at night or in poorly-lit conditions, then the bright light from the computer screen can cause eye strain.

Some people even believe that the bright light can disrupt your natural circadian rhythms and make it more difficult to fall asleep.

With that in mind, many apps, websites, and even operating systems come with a built-in dark mode. This reduces the amount of white light coming from the screen, which should prevent eye strain and may even help you sleep better.

If you have an iPhone or Android smartphone, then you may be able to switch to dark mode using a toggle.

Some popular websites like YouTube even offer a built-in dark color scheme.

If you want to create your own YouTube-style dark mode for visitors, then please see our guide on how to add dark mode to your WordPress website.

This is great for your visitors, but you may also want to add a dark mode to your website’s back-end. WordPress comes with admin color schemes, but none of the default color schemes reduce the amount of white light coming through the screen.

Luckily, there is a plugin that solves that.

With that being said, let’s add a dark mode to the WordPress admin area so you can work comfortably on your site late into the night or in low-light conditions.

Adding Dark Mode to Your WordPress Admin Dashboard

The easiest way to add a dark mode to the WordPress admin dashboard is by using WP Dark Mode. This plugin allows admins to enable and disable dark mode with a single click.

Even better, if you run a multi-author WordPress blog, then each person can toggle dark mode on and off as they prefer. The plugin will remember their preference the next time time they log into the admin area.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the WP Dark Mode plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to the WP Dark Mode » Settings page in your WordPress dashboard and then click on the General Settings tab.

You’ll notice that the ‘Enable Frontend Darkmode’ switch is turned on by default.

This means visitors will see the regular, light version of your WordPress blog or website. They can switch to dark mode at any point, by clicking on the icon in the bottom-right corner.

If you want to use dark more on the admin dashboard only, then you’ll need to disable the ‘Enable Frontend Darkmode’ slider.

This removes dark mode from your website’s front-end so visitors will always see the regular, light version of your WordPress website.

After that, click on the Save Settings button at the bottom of the page.

At this point you’ll see a new ‘Light / Dark’ switch in the admin toolbar. You can click on this toggle to enable and disable dark mode in the admin area.

Since ‘Dark Mode’ is not an admin color scheme, you can use it in combination with the different WordPress color schemes. In this way, you can further reduce the amount of light coming from the screen, or even make the darker dashboard easier to read by choosing a brighter scheme.

To change the admin color scheme, go to Users » Profile and then choose any of the options under Admin Color Scheme.

Even with dark mode enabled, you’ll still see the light version of the page and post editor.

To switch to the dark version of the editor, simply click on the small color wheel in its toolbar and then select ‘Darkmode.’

The plugin will remember this change, and open the page and post editor in dark mode from this point onwards.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to add dark mode to your WordPress admin dashboard. You may also want to see our guide on how to create a landing page in WordPress, or see our expert pick of the must have WordPress plugins.

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