How to Make a Dark Theme on Xiaomi Phone: The Complete Guide

Modern OLED and AMOLED screens, which are equipped with flagship and mid-budget smartphones, offer incredibly deep color reproduction, but with a bright white interface, it can tire your eyes. Turning on dark mode not only reduces the load on vision in low light conditions, but also helps save battery power, since the black pixels on such arrays are actually turned off. Users often wonder how to activate this mode, since in the shell of MIUI or HyperOS settings can be hidden or scattered on different menus.

The activation process depends on the version of the Android operating system and the specific interface modification installed on your device. In some cases, a standard switch is not enough, and you need to activate hidden functions through special engineering access menus. Below we will discuss in detail all the known ways that will help you transform the appearance of your gadget.

Before making any changes, make sure your software is updated to the latest available version, which ensures that all the latest features and fixes for visual bugs are available that can interfere with the correct display of dark elements in system applications.

Standard activation through system settings

The easiest and most obvious way, which should work on 90% of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO devices, is in the main settings menu. You need to open the Settings app and find the Screen item. This is where the basic image management options, including brightness, refresh rate and color scheme, are concentrated.

Inside the Screen section, you should look for the Dark Mode option. Some firmware versions may simply call it "Theme" or have a crescent icon. Once the slider is activated, the interface will instantly change: the white background will change to dark gray or black, and the text will become light to preserve contrast.

Often users don’t see this option because they’re looking for it in the Personalization section.

• 🌙 Open the settings on the desktop.
• 📱 Go to the Screen (or Display) section).
• 🔘 Find the Dark Mode switch and activate it.
• 🎨 If you wish, select the design option: "Classic" or "Improved".

It's worth noting that activating this feature can affect third-party applications in different ways. Until popular service developers add support for the system theme, their interface can remain light, which creates dissonance. However, system applications such as the phone book, messages and gallery usually adjust instantly.

⚠️ Note: If after turning on a dark theme, some applications look incorrect (button boundaries disappear or text merges with the background), try changing the design option from "Improved" to "Classic" in the same settings menu.

Using the “Themes” application for global change

If standard settings don't work, or if you want a deeper customization, the Themes app will come to the rescue, a powerful tool that allows you to change not only wallpaper, but also system icons, fonts and general interface styling. Unlike a simple switch, you can find solutions that force you to obscure even those elements that ignore the system command.

To get started, launch the Themes app and go to the user profile by clicking on the person icon in the lower right corner. From the menu that opens, select Settings. Here you are interested in the Additional Settings section, where the key option for advanced users is hidden.

Find Apply theme to individual components or System themes for design. You can customize in detail which interface elements will be darkened in this menu, you can leave the notification bar light, but make the settings menu dark, or vice versa.

Using third-party themes from the store can dramatically change the way you look at the system, but be careful with themes from unknown authors. They may contain ad modules or work incorrectly with the latest versions of Android, causing crashes in the launcher.

• 🎭 Launch the Topics app.
• ⚙️ Go to profile and select Settings.
• 🔍 Activate System Themes for Design.
• 📲 Select Components for Forced Darkening.

Activation through the Developer Menu

In situations where the app doesn’t support a dark theme, or you want to force the colors to be inverted for all interface elements, there are hidden debugging settings, which is considered more “aggressive” and can affect the display of colors in photos or videos, so you need to use it with an understanding of the consequences.

To access these settings, you first need to unlock the developer menu. Go to Settings → About Phone and quickly press 7 times on the MIUI Version (or OS Version). Once the message "You became a developer" appears, go back to the main settings menu, open Additional → For developers.

In the list of engineering options, find Override force-dark, which causes the system to apply a dark algorithm to all applications, even if they have not claimed that support, which can make the interface more uniform, but sometimes leads to artifacts.

Settings → Additional → For developers → Replace the theme (include)

This method is especially useful for older versions of Android, where native support for dark mode was implemented fragmentary, and on newer versions of the system, it duplicates standard features, but works at a lower level.

⚠️ Note: Replace theme in the developer menu may cause screen flickering or incorrect color display in graphic editors.

Automation of inclusion on schedule

Manually switching theme every night and morning quickly becomes uncomfortable, and fortunately, the system automates this process, and you can set up scenarios where a dark theme will turn on automatically at a specific time or when light levels change.

Settings menu → Screen. → In dark mode, find the Schedule or AutoSwitch button, and there are two main options available: turn on by time (e.g. 20:00 to 07:00) or sunrise and sunset. The second option is preferable because it adapts to the season and your location.

Using automation is not only convenient, it is also good for eye health: the abrupt transition from a bright screen to a dark room causes stress for vision, and smooth switching of the interface at dusk helps to maintain comfort.

• 🕒 Go to the Dark Mode settings.
• 📅 Select the option on schedule.
• 🌅 Set a “Down to Dawn” Time for Smart Work.
• ✅ Save Changes for Automatic Activation.

In addition, some scenarios in the Mi Scenarios app allow you to link the theme change to running certain applications or connecting to a Wi-Fi network, although this is more difficult to implement by standard means and requires the creation of macros.

Comparison of methods of dimming the interface

To make it easier for you to choose the right option, we have prepared a summary table comparing the main methods of activating a dark theme, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages depending on the model of your smartphone and the firmware version.

As you can see from the table, the standard method is the most stable, but less flexible. The method through the developer menu gives maximum coverage, but can suffer from visual bugs. The choice depends on your priorities: stability or maximum dimming.

Solving and resolving problems

Despite the simplicity of the procedure, users often face problems, and one of the most common is that a dark theme does not apply to the settings menu or control panel, often because they have chosen an "enhanced" version of the theme that does not repaint all interface elements.

Another problem is the white background in Google apps. Since Google develops its apps separately from the MIUI/HyperOS shell, they may ignore system settings if not updated to the latest version through the Play Market.

Also worth mentioning is the navigation bar problem, which in some themes, the bottom navigation bar is white, which cuts the eye in the night mode, whether by changing the theme of the design or using a full-screen gesture mode that integrates better with the dark interface.

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If a dark theme “flys” after the reboot, check if you have a third-party launcher that may conflict with the system settings of the design.

In rare cases, after a firmware update, theme settings may reset. This is normal behavior in major Android updates, when the interface resource identifiers change. Just activate the mode again.

⚠️ Note: Using modified themes from unverified sources can lead to ads in the system menu or even locking the device.

The impact of dark theme on autonomy and health

On IPS-type screens, which are still found in Xiaomi budget models, the dark theme has little impact on power consumption, since the backlight is constantly running throughout the matrix area.

A completely different situation with matrices AMOLED Super AMOLED, The Mi, Redmi Note Pro series and POCO F/X. Here, each pixel glows independently. Black means the pixel is off. AMOLED-The screens can increase the battery life to 15-20% depending on the brightness and content.

Also, reducing the amount of blue light in the evening helps melatonin production, improving sleep quality, so using a dark theme is not just a matter of aesthetics, but also a concern for the body's circadian rhythms with frequent use of a smartphone at night.

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Nana AMOLED-Black is a switched-off pixel, which directly saves battery power, unlike the other. IPS-Matrices where there is practically no savings.