Edge InPrivate windows open in Light theme even though Appearance is set to Dark. InPrivate mode should follow the selected Dark appearance.

Question

Edge InPrivate windows open using the Light theme despite the user selecting Dark under Settings > Appearance. Normal (non‑InPrivate) windows correctly display the Dark theme. After the latest Update.

Answer 1

I also encountered the same problem on my laptop. This is not a problem with user settings, because I was able to replicate this in Windows Sandbox. I noticed that when on normal browsing (not InPrivate) and dark theme is set, the theme appears dark on all pages. As soon as you do InPrivate browsing, pages appear light. I did find a fix, which is annoying for me.

It's not your fault, it's Microsoft's - hopefully they release a fix soon because it makes my eyes bleed. The fix is below:

Method 1: If you still want to use Edge

1: Open the Windows Settings app
2: Click Personalisation
3: Click Colours
4: Enable "Dark" default app mode (if it blinds your eyes, also enable "Dark" default Windows mode)
(5: If you can't do Step 4 because you can't see those options, change "Choose your colour" to "Custom" or "Dark", if picked Custom, do step 4)

Method 2: If you do not want to change to dark theme on Windows and/or are feeling lazy

Use Chrome (Edge and Chrome are built on Chromium)

Answer 2

Hello, good day and thanks for your question. Is it the same even if you try to do a reset via edge://settings/reset? Please try to do a repair as well by going to or pressing Windows key + I > Apps > Installed apps > look for Microsoft Edge and then click on the three dots on click on Modify and then click on Repair. Another thing that you can check and test is to download and install separate builds of Beta, Canary or Dev to see if the issue will also be replicated from there.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/download/insider