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If you happen to be a fan of “dark mode” or “night mode” for reading or viewing on your computer, YouTube has hidden a nifty little feature that will allow you to do just that for their website. I have tested this and it is super simple. Not only will it work for Chrome users on version 57+, I have enabled it in the FireFox browser as well. IE users, sorry, you’re out of luck. Just do yourself a favor and download Chrome here.
Personally, I am a big fan of “dark mode.” I use it on Android apps when available and like to take advantage of darker themes on browsers, webpages etc. For me it makes reading a bit easier and as I get distracted easily, it helps me focus on the content I am consuming. If the dark theme isn’t your thing, no worries. To each his own. But, if you want to give it a try, here’s how.
- Head to YouTube.com from Chrome or FireFox
- Sign in with your Google account if you aren’t already
- Open developer tools. You can do so by typing ctrl+shift+i or alternatively (and much quicker) right click anywhere in the page and click “inspect element” Tools will open to the right or bottom of the screen.
- Click the “console” tab and paste this code into the editor:
document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=fPQ4jCL6EiE" - Exit the developer console and refresh the page. (you may be logged back out. just log back in)
- Click your icon in the top right corner of the page and select the Dark Mode option. Toggle it on
Boom! You now have the hidden “dark mode” for YouTube. To disable, simply click settings and toggle it back off. This is a pretty neat option and hopefully we will see it become a standard feature as YouTube continues to tweak its design elements.
Source: ChromeStory
