Facebook Messenger Dark Mode Test Appears For Some Users
As with Twitter, Reddit, and other services before it, Facebook is finally working on a dark mode for its messaging app. Earlier this year, a leak revealed that Facebook's team was internally testing a Messenger dark mode, and now that same mode is showing up publicly as a test for some users. As the name suggests, the dark mode changes the appearance of Facebook Messenger to a dark color scheme.
Dark and "night" modes have become increasingly popular, prompting companies like Microsoft, Twitter, and Reddit to launch dark color scheme options. These dark modes utilize grey and black colors to reduce the brightness of the product, reducing eye strain, making it easier to use the service in a dark environment, and, in some cases, helping reduce battery usage.
Back in October, Jane Manchun Wong published a tweet containing multiple Facebook Messenger screenshots featuring a dark mode. Based on those images, the dark mode is truly dark...it has an entirely black background, black chat thread menu, with the only colors being grey text input bars and teal icons.
Facebook Messenger is testing Dark Mode in the new UI
previously: https://t.co/vT6WoKikPm pic.twitter.com/A6ETE45BPN
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) October 5, 2018
In a tweet published over New Year's, Wong said that Facebook has started publicly testing dark mode in select countries "seemingly due to prolonged external nagging." As with most public tests, only a small number of users are currently seeing the option available within Messenger.
It's unclear at this time how many people — and in which countries — have access to the dark mode, and there's no word on when Facebook plans to launch it as a standard feature for everyone. The presence of a public test hints that an upcoming final launch may happen in the near future, however.