Rejoice: Snapchat rolls out dark mode free for all, including Android users

The dark mode is one of humanity’s better recent inventions. For years we were out in the dark (pun intended), blasting our eyeballs with radiant bright backgrounds. That changed in 2016 when Microsoft introduced the dark mode in a Windows 10 update, then in 2018 Apple followed with a similar feature in macOS Mojave, and in 2019 both iOS and Android introduced dark modes.

Many mobile applications quickly got on the bandwagon, offering eye-soothing dark modes since, but not all did as well. For example, Snapchat delivered only halfway through – iOS users got it for free, while on Android the option to go dark was locked behind a paywall ($4/month for the Snapchat+ subscription). Now that’s about to change (via 9to5Google).

“Mr. Snapchat, tear down this paywall!”

Well, that’s not exactly an authentic Ronald Reagan quote, but Snapchat users on Android sure have been making that exact request for years now. Why Android users only? That’s because Snapchat iOS users have had it built-in for free since 2021. There were several workaround ways to use Snapchat in dark mode on Android by forcing the system’s darker color scheme on various applications, but thankfully you won’t be needing those anymore.

Snapchat’s tearing down of the Android paywall was spotted by developer Shubham, here it is:


As the screenshot post shows, there’s the option to choose between titled modes “Always light” and “Always dark” – it’s to be received via an app update. The option to enable the dark mode can be found in the Settings menu, then hit “App Appearance”.