Enable OS X Yosemite's Dark Mode with a Terminal Command

Apple unveiled a new “dark mode” for OS X Yosemite during the company’s WWDC keynote earlier this month, but the feature has thus far been absent from the first two developer builds. Today, however, developer Hamza Sood discovered that a partially-functional Dark Mode could be enabled in the second Yosemite beta with a Terminal command.

To try the feature, head to Terminal on a Mac running OS X Yosemite Beta 2 and enter the following command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleInterfaceTheme Dark

This implementation gives developers a peak at the final version of Dark Mode, although in its current form it is incomplete, with several bugs readily apparent. To disable Dark Mode and revert to the default Yosemite color scheme, head back to Terminal and use this command:

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleInterfaceTheme Dark

If the above command doesn’t work, try this:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleInterfaceTheme Light

You’ll need to log out of your user account or reboot your Mac to see the change in either case.

Image via MacRumors

Dechen

Nice tip to try out even if it is partially-functional. Thanks. The command to disable the Dark Mode didn’t work for me but found one that did back at the developer Hamza Sood’s Twitter feed. Here’s the command (enter without the quotes), which essentially toggles the light mode, “sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleInterfaceTheme light”.
- http://www.tekrevue.com/ TekRevue
  
  Thanks, Dechen. That’s weird that deleting it didn’t work, as it did on one of our test systems. But I’ve added the second option to write the Light theme.