The Auto Dark Mode app is a fantastic way to automatically schedule light and dark mode in Windows 11 with minimal effort.
Just like Windows 10, Windows 11 includes light and dark modes to suit your preferences. If you go for dark, the platform’s windows will be black. Selecting light turns the window colors white.
These settings permanently apply their color schemes until you manually change to the other one. Windows 11 doesn’t include any additional options that enable you to schedule times for dark and light modes to automatically come on. Nevertheless, you can still configure dark/light mode to automatically change with the Auto Dark Mode app.
Auto Dark Mode is a nifty piece of freeware software that lets you schedule dark and light mode. For example, you can use Auto Dark Mode to change to light mode at 9 AM and back to dark mode at 6 PM. The app gives you full control over the times, so you can set it to your heart's content.
Here is how you can set dark and light mode times with Auto Dark Mode:
The program will still be running after you close its window, so you don’t need to minimize it. To close Auto Dark Mode, right-click the app’s system tray icon and select Close.
Auto Dark Mode also has quite a few other settings on different tabs. For example, you can set up dark and light mode hotkeys. To do so, click in the Force Light Mode Hotkey or Force Dark Mode Hotkey boxes on the Switch Modes tab. Then press a hotkey like Ctrl + L or Ctrl + D for your chosen mode. To apply the hotkeys, turn on the Enable system-wide hotkeys option.
You can select different desktop wallpapers for light and dark modes. To do that, click the Pick a wallpaper option on the Personalization tab.
Related: Windows 11 Sounds: Get Familiar With the New Calm System Sounds
Turn on the Enable wallpaper switch setting, and select a mode in Mode drop-down menu. Select the Picture option on the Type drop-down menu, and select Pick a file to choose a wallpaper. Then the desktop wallpaper will change to your chosen background when light or dark mode comes on.
An option for setting dark and light mode times in Windows 11 is something Microsoft should have added to its latest desktop platform. Who knows, maybe one day Microsoft might add such a feature to Windows 11 with an update. For now, you can configure dark/light mode times with Auto Dark Mode.
Overall, Auto Dark Mode is a decent app for configuring and customizing Windows 11’s dark and light modes. With its Set custom hours option, you can get the best of both the dark and light mode worlds by setting start times for them. Auto Dark Mode’s hotkey and wallpaper customization settings are also good additional options for the color modes.
Using a dark background with light text on screens and devices while in the dark can help reduce eye strain.
Jack has been a freelance tech journalist for more than a decade. He has covered Windows Vista, 7, 10, and 11 topics within a multitude of guides for Make Use Of and numerous other websites.
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