Photo: Khamosh Pathak
The automatic dark mode is a great way to soothe your eyes when you’re using your iPhone or iPad late at night. But what happens when you then open a web page in Safari? A blinding white light hits you out of nowhere, that’s what, because not all websites support the dark mode. If you’re using iOS 15 or iPadOS 15, however, you can now use the Dark Reader extension to force all websites to bend to your will and open in dark mode (or sepia mode, or a different theme).
The Dark Reader extension is a stable, well-known extension that’s been popular on the Safari desktop browser for years. And now, you can use it on the iPhone or iPad, as well. It’s not free, or cheap. But the one-time $4.99 purchase lets you use it across all your Apple devices. If you don’t want to spend $4.99, you can also try out the $2.99 Noir extension, which works in a similar fashion.
How to enable Dark Reader for Safari
Dark Reader is a Safari extension, which is available as an app. Once it’s downloaded, the app is essentially useless; it’s just there to add the extension to Safari. We recommend removing it from your Home Screen, so it won’t clutter up your other useful apps.
Because of the way Safari extensions work, you’ll need to enable each extension individually. Then, you’ll need to give the extension permission to access all websites. After downloading the Dark Reader app, open the Settings app, and go to Safari > Extensions. Here, go to the “Dark Reader” section, and enable the extension for the top. Next, go to the “All Websites” section, and switch to the “Allow” option.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
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This way, Dark Reader will be able to work on all websites. (By default, Dark Reader will ask permission to enable the feature on every website that you visit. This can get annoying very quickly.)
How to get dark mode in any website in Safari for iPhone and iPad
Once the setup is complete, it’s easy sailing. Open the Safari browser on your iPhone, and tap the “Aa” button. Here, you should see the Dark Reader extension in the list. If you’re using an iPad, tap the Extensions button in the URL bar to see all installed extensions. Select “Dark Reader,” then “On.” From the bottom, you can switch to a different theme.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
Go to the “Settings” section and make sure the “Enabled by default” feature is on. This makes sure that all websites will load in dark mode automatically. If you don’t want to open a particular website in dark mode, go to the Dark Reader extension, and uncheck the current website.
