CSS only dark mode without JS

19. March 2023
20. March 2023 last update

Last week I implemented dark mode on my website, without using any JS and only modern CSS media queries.
It was pretty sure, that dark mode can only be implemented using JS, but a quick online search proved me wrong.

Lets make it dark

This css one liner can define how your site looks on a device with dark mode set in the browser settings.

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark)

Or if your main style is dark mode, you can define how the light mode will look.

@media (prefers-color-scheme: light)

And with this little scss and media query you can set dynamically the background and font color of the whole body of your html.

$background-color-light: #FDF6E3;
$background-color-dark: #002b36;
$font-color-light: $background-color-dark;
$font-color-dark: $background-color-light;

body {
    background-color: $background-color-light;
    color: $font-color-light;

    @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
        background-color: $background-color-dark;
        color: $font-color-dark;
    }
}

Of course, you can't switch between dark mode and light mode with a button (or at least I don't know, how to do that) like you could do with JS. But anyway I can't remember the last time I used a button like that and websites should follow directly the system settings.

How to test it

To test it, you can simply switch the color theme of your browser in the settings and voilà: the site changes automatically colors.
For this website I used the solarized theme. It is my favorite theme and I use the solarized light theme everywhere I can.

So here, the internet proved me again, that a simple website can have a lot of cool features, without using JS at all.

Every feedback is welcome

Feel free to write me an email at info@simondalvai.org and comment on Mastodon or HackerNews.