Facebook’s Messenger overhaul began rolling out globally early this year, bringing with it a much-needed refresh to the app’s design that cut the clutter and made it simpler to use. As part of the UI refresh, the company added a ton of white space around the elements in the app to provide a sense of separation and simplicity. The firm, however, did confirm that the long-awaited Dark Mode would soon make its way to the app.
While the said Dark Mode could unofficially be enabled in the Beta version of the app, it looks like a recent update to the stable version lets users enable Dark Mode through a rather unusual way. It is to be noted, however, that the mode is still not completely ready yet, according to the social media giant, which may be the reason why it isn’t yet available through a toggle in the settings directly and needs to be enabled through what seems like an easter egg.
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To enable dark mode, all one must do is send a crescent moon emoji to any conversation in the chat list. Doing so triggers a shower of smiling crescent moon emojis, for some reason, after which you will need to manually close and re-open the app. Now, head to the settings and voila, a Dark Mode toggle appears at the top of the settings list. On enabling the mode for the first time, a pop-up message informs that the mode is still unfinished.
Dark Mode is a welcome addition in Messenger for those that tend to use the app at night or prefer dark mode everything. A dark theme also is ostensibly beneficial on OLED/AMOLED displays, as it improves battery life. Though it needs to currently be enabled using a funny hack, it does look like it is ready for prime time, so don’t be surprised to see the mode officially making its way to the app sooner than later.
While we can confirm that the method works on the Android app, it reportedly also works on the iOS version.
Source: Reddit via XDA Developers