Internet Explorer 11 dark theme and dark mode for websites

Question

Is there a way to enable dark theme (for the browser itself) and dark mode/night mode for the actual websites in Internet Explorer 11?

Answer 1

You might have luck with an addon (Tools -> Manage Add-Ons), if there's one there such as "Turn off the lights".

Otherwise, I hacked my own dark mode CSS file, which can be applied over the top of any website like so:

1. Go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Accessibility (under "Appearance" section)
2. If you click 'ignore colors specified on webpages', that affects all sorts of things including Development tools!, so instead, just click 'Format documents using my style sheet' and select your custom stylesheet

Here is my custom style sheet (create a new text file, and rename to name.css):

body:before { 
    content:"";
    position:fixed;
    top:50%; left: 50%;
    z-index:9999;
    width:1px; height: 1px;
    outline:2999px solid invert;
}

HT: Lea Verou

This will totally invert all colours in all text/images (IE9+ only). Much easier than trying to specify everything.

Else, if you have access to the site itself, you can use JavaScript to toggle some different styles (ask in Stack Overflow for how to).

Internet Explorer doesn't support @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) (and can't access any Windows settings AFAIK) so this is why the only way programmatically forward is to use a button/toggle.

Answer 2

Not to take away from the work the IE team did at the time however IE11 was still a few years behind the time when it was released. There is only one browser you can truly customize at this point and you can actually theme the browser itself as well as override all the styles of each individual website.

• You'll need to use Waterfox Classic (not the other version).
• To fix individual websites you'll need the Stylus extension; it and the instructions on how to use it can be found here.
• You'll likely want to make Waterfox Classic dark as demonstrated here. To do that you'll have to do some work though it's entirely possible. First you'll need the Classic Theme Restorer extension. Secondly you'll need the settings for CTR to jump-start getting the browser cleaned up.

People need to support these projects or they'll disappear and we'll be stuck with terrible spy-browsers like Chrome. Good luck.