2019 was the year of dark mode thanks to Android 10, iOS 13 and other device-specific UI’s such as Huawei’s EMUI 10, vivo’s Funtouch OS, OPPO’s ColorOS 7 and Xiaomi’s MIUI 11. We can all agree on that. There has been a lot of apps that have introduced this feature either as a dark mode or theme. This year, some apps have been catching up – mostly, Facebook apps such as WhatsApp(sigh).
Early this year, WhatsApp for Android got dark mode and also WhatsApp for iOS. Sadly this is for WhatsApp beta users as regular users will have to wait for a while. Another sigh as other chat apps already have dark mode plus more features WhatsApp is lagging on – shout out to Telegram.
The WhatsApp beta program available on the Google Play Store is already full so no luck there. A little digression here is that you can download β-Maniac(read “beta-maniac”), an app that serves as a hub for everything related to your Google Play betas. You get a list of all the apps you have installed which have them and gives you options for joining them. The app will also notify you if a spot for a closed beta has opened up for you to join.
The only option left is to download the beta app as an APK through sideloading. However, it’s not the safest – strictly stick to downloading apps on the Google Play Store.
The process
- First of all, back up your WhatsApp messages and media to Google Drive
- Go to apkmirror.com and search for WhatsApp beta in the search bar.
- You’ll get various results, so go with the latest version(this is the latest version as at the time of publishing)
- Just click the download icon on the far right and you’ll be redirected to the download page.
- Click the download apk button. Chrome will open a dialog box to warn you about downloading the apk file. Allow Chrome to install apps in the settings page that opens up and switch on the “Allow from this source” to begin the installation. Make sure to switch the toggle off after you’re done installing.
- the app will install and now you have the latest version of WhatsApp beta.
- You can restore your chats and media from Google Drive backup.
- Once everything is set up, click the three-dot menu on the WhatsApp homescreen, go to settings then chats and select themes(this option sits at the top) and switch between Light and Dark themes.
- Selecting dark themes will switch the interface to dark – from Chats to Status to Settings.
That’s it. This tip comes handy to devices that don’t have dark mode support from the operating system or the devices’ UI.
