Enable Dark Mode on Chrome's Internal Pages

Note: as of chrome Version 78.0.3904.87 (Official Build) (64-bit) you can easliy turn chrome's internal pages to dark mode,its under chrome flags by default

• run chrome://flags in the url
• search for dark and you should see this option Force Dark Mode for Web Contents just enable it and relaunch chrome.

this is how it looks

for those who don't have the above option under flags To enable dark mode on Ubuntu, you need to edit the google-chrome.desktop file.

If you use GNOME desktop, simply run the command below which opens up the required file in editable format. If not, open the file in a text editor of your choice

sudo -H gedit /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

All you have to do is search for two lines and add a dark mode flag in front of them.

1. Search for

   Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable %U
   

   and replace it with:

   Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable %U --force-dark-mode
   

2. Search for

   Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable
   

   and add the dark mode flag after it like this:

   Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable --force-dark-mode
   

Once you have done these changes, simply try restarting chrome. If that doesn't work, rebooting your Ubuntu system should do the job.

For me rebooting my Ubuntu 18.04 system worked. Also note that if you update the chrome app, the changes will be gone, since the file will be overwritten.

Just paste

chrome://flags 

in the search bar, and in the opened page, search for 'dark' and find

Force Dark Mode for Web Contents

Enable this thing, and you're done.
Now you've got the dark mode.

I made a script for it, just run:

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL "")"

Output:

We will:
  - Create the file '/home/felipesantos/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop'

Do you confirm? (Yy)y

All done.
Please make sure you fully close Google Chrome before opening a new instance.

To uninstall, run:
  $ rm -f /home/felipesantos/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

It currently uses the method described by DK Bose's answer, but I might change in the future if it stops working. Basically, it:

1. Copies Chrome's system shortcut to the user shortcut
2. Edits the options on the executable for you

There is no need to change Chrome's theme in my tests tough.

I would highly recommend installing Dark Reader which intelligently scans the CSS of the page to keep background dark and adjust foreground colors accordingly. Here is a snippet showing dark reader in action

Original

Dark reader

Works with GTK+

1. Create a new .desktop file using Chrome's default

cp /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

2. Edit the .desktop file that was just created.

gedit ~/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

3. Search for Exec and append --enable-features=WebUIDarkMode --force-dark-mode to the end of the line each time it appears (about 3 times)

# Before
Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable %U
# After
Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable %U --enable-features=WebUIDarkMode --force-dark-mode

4. Restart Chrome.

Glossary

.desktop file: A shortcut to an application that will appear when searching applications. Contains config information on how the shortcut will look and how to launch the application. Any exectable can have a GUI shortcut by adding a .desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications/

Exec: The actual CLI command that launchs the application executable. Command line options can be added here.

An alternative way to emulate dark mode is here.

You can choose a theme and use that very easily to get Chrome dark.