October 31, 2025 at 7:52:19 PM UTC

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Thinking about dark/light mode pickers that have three options: Auto/Dark/Light.

If the default is “Auto” — in what scenario might someone want to move away from Auto (which would visually be a noop to the same theme?)

I’m using Light mode as my system preference, but it seems unlikely that I would swap from Auto (Light mode) to Light mode (not Auto) on a specific site

30 replies

Philipp Tootloff 6 min later

@zachleat if your system default is dark, I can totally see switching to light on select sites because there are definitely some very awful dark modes out there
1. Zach Leatherman 10 min later
  
  @kleinfreund to be clear, I mean: would you select Dark in the chooser if your default was Dark?
  1. Alan 30 min later
    
    @zachleat @kleinfreund I've selected dark in a chooser before (when my auto is dark). Couldn't say why, maybe I thought the real dark mode would look different to auto dark.
  2. Philipp Tootloff 13 hr later
    
    @zachleat Oh yeah, turns out I can’t read. My bad!
Erik 7 min later

@zachleat I go with auto, but if I was working super late and intentionally keeping all the lights on to help myself stay up I'd switch to light mode to match my environment. Likewise if I ended up working somewhere dark during the day I'd swap to dark mode to match my surroundings.
Alexis Deveria 9 min later

@zachleat I've read somewhere that reading long-form text is generally easier on the eyes when it's dark text on light background, so depending on the site that might be a reason to switch.
Scott 12 min later

@zachleat like, you prefer light mode and you're saving future you from getting dark mode next time? who knows if the setting even persists?
1. Scott 28 min later
  
  @zachleat to be clear I’m speculating. I never think about saving future me.
Lea Rosema 16 min later

@zachleat one scenario is hybrid work. Well mostly I'm in home office where I'm used to dark mode, but one day a week I'm in the office. The office is "glass everywhere" and the environment light is sometimes very light and then it is more comfortable for me to switch my code editor to a light theme.
1. Lea Rosema 19 min later
  
  @zachleat or: sometimes the wheather in Hamburg is very gray and rainy, and then I switch to Solarized light to have some illusion of sun ☺️
  1. Zach Leatherman 23 min later
    
    @lea In those environments, I usually set it globally in my display preferences
    1. Lea Rosema 25 min later
      
      @zachleat fair point. Then, the "auto" setting would still apply.
William O'Connell 17 min later

@zachleat My system is set to light mode but I leave Discord on dark theme. IMO it would be really confusing if I set Discord to light mode manually but then changing my system setting put it back.
Sara Joy 30 min later

@zachleat just linking the answer I gave on Bluesky (saw it there first) in case it interests anyone here: https://bsky.app/profile/sjoy.lol/post/3m4jbj7pax22p
Private reply 37 min later
Matt 39 min later

@zachleat I have my devices switch from light to dark mode when it gets dark outside, but there are certain websites that I want to have a consistently light or dark theme. I’ll often switch away from auto to ensure those sites remain in one theme regardless of time of day
Jesse Janowiak 49 min later

@zachleat I haven’t done any research into this, but my sense is that the alternative is even more confusing to users, even though it appears simpler.
1. Jesse Janowiak 50 min later
  
  @zachleat Possible user confusion from offering all three options: “Huh, I wonder why I would choose ‘light’ when it’s already light?” Worst-case outcome: they pick the one they actually want and it works like the expected.
  Possible user confusion for offering only “auto” and the opposite of the current color: “Where is the ‘light’ option? I clicked on dark, and now I want to change it back but it looks like I can’t.” Worst-case outcome: minor frustration.
  1. Sara Joy 55 min later
    
    @janowiak @zachleat or it works like a toggle, from the mode you're in to the opposite, and back again.
    But that way you can never get back to auto, presumably.
    1. Jesse Janowiak 1 hr later
      
      @sarajw @zachleat Exactly! The first time we implemented a dark/light toggle at my old job, we went around the possible implementations for quite a while before settling on the least-bad option.
Ste Grainer 1 hr later

@zachleat I left auto in as the default because some people may choose to have light/dark mode change with time or environment. My picker (based on Richard Rutter’s) saves to localdata so I didn’t want to force sticking with whatever choice they had set the first time visiting.
I expect most users to stick with the default auto mode but provide a picker in case they don’t want to.
Max Fenton 1 hr later

@zachleat I always like giving a default/auto option in a CMS but on a front-end maybe it could just check prefs and default light/dark to that. Same if there’s a high-contrast toggle.
Nathan Knowler 1 hr later

@zachleat Sometimes I too go outside (with my laptop)
1. Nathan Knowler 1 hr later
  
  @zachleat On a serious note, I agree about setting it at a system level. I do wonder if the common folk know about that though? Then again most of them are probably just running the system default anyway. Having the control on-site puts it in front of them.
Matt Fantinel 1 hr later

@zachleat some people (a lot) have no idea the system preference is a thing, and set dark mode individually because that’s the only way they know how.
Also I’ve had people in the past give me the feedback that they like their Windows in light mode, but prefer sites in dark mode.
Point being, users are weird
meduz' 2 hr later

@zachleat When dark mode was introduced on macOS, I had some colleagues back then that wanted the OS in dark and the websites in light mode.
On my side I never go away from auto.
Ramón Corominas 2 hr later

@zachleat Not sure that this is what you are asking, but I use high contrast settings in Windows. I also have to evaluate the accessibility of web pages in their "normal" colors or show slides, so I have to constantly switch from "auto" to "disable" and viceversa in firefox depending on what I am doing
Giorgio Pretto 4 hr later

@zachleat
This thread on bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lea.verou.me/post/3lrodmblzzc23
My scenario is Auto equals dark, but if I need to read longtext I need light or my eyes bleed.
theAdhocracy 13 hr later

@zachleat I have had several devices configured to do light mode in the day, dark mode at night at an OS level. But some sites just work better in one or the other, so I will set those specifically if possible.
Also, sometimes I just like to see what each look like. I might set it back to auto, I might set it to the equivalent, depends 🤷
Amelia Bellamy-Royds 22 hr later

@zachleat Auto (use the operating system setting) can mean switching between light and dark mode depending on time of day. For a specific web site, you might not want that.