X gets rid of its popular night mode in-app setting

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Here’s a quick, but potentially relevant update for X users.

This week, some X users have noted that the “night mode” option has been removed from the app settings as of the latest update, and is seemingly no longer available to users.

Twitter originally added its night mode option (which is more commonly known as “dark mode” in other apps) in 2016. The feature provided a way to protect users from the impacts of blue light exposure, while also giving the app a cool new look, which made it a popular option.

But now, the night mode setting is gone.

So what gives?

As explained by Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, in an X post on March 5, X has updated its app to align with user device preferences, which are set at the device level in phone settings. So if a user has dark mode switched on in their device settings, the X app will also switch to dark/night mode whenever dark mode is active, however, there’s no longer a control for it within the X app itself.

Bier said the app-level control for night mode “made no sense” and created issues throughout the app.

Some users expressed frustration at losing a level of control over their X experience, but Bier said other social apps, including TikTok and YouTube, have also taken this approach to dark mode.

So now, there’s one less control option for your X app display, and some users will be annoyed to lose that alternate variation, with the only option to get it back being to change every app to dark mode instead.

But Bier says that this is a systematic improvement, which will help the X team improve the app’s overall user experience.