How to schedule night mode activation in Windows 11 without programs

 

White and light colors in general have always dominated the interface of most operating systems and programs, as these colors are attractive to the eye. But recently there has been a completely different trend, which is to reverse the matter and make black or dark gray the dominant color through what has been called the “night mode”. Indeed, suppose you check the customization settings in any modern operating system. In that case, whether Mac, Linux, or Android, you will find there is an option to activate the night or dark mode, and although it is also available in Windows 11 and even better than it is in Windows 10, Microsoft still does not allow scheduling activation This option to turn on automatically at night so it adapts to the day. Fortunately, there is a way to circumvent this without installing additional software.

 

This method relies on a tool that already exists among the tools built into the Windows system called Task Scheduler, which can be used to create a scheduled task to run the night mode at a specific time every day, in addition to creating a separate task to return to the bright (normal) mode in the morning automatically, and accordingly Grammar System colors adapt to the nature of the day — similar to what's found in other operating systems, whether macOS or Linux distributions.

 

So to get started, we will run the tool by pressing the Win + S keys together on the keyboard to open the search bar, then type “Task Scheduler” and then from the search results, click on the “Run” option. Alternatively, press the Win + R keys together, and in the Run window that appears, type [taskschd.msc] and press Enter. The Task Scheduler window will appear immediately.

 

After running the tool, we create a task that activates the night mode at a specific time. So you will start by clicking on the Create Task option in the left pane, and in the window that appears, click on the Name field to set the name of the task; You can choose any name that helps you to know the task, such as "Auto Switch to Dark mode", and then make sure to activate the Run only when the user is logged on option, and also put a checkmark (✔) next to "Do not store password" as shown in the attached image above.

 

Now go to the "Triggers" section, then click on the "New" button at the bottom. A new window will appear where you select Daily from the left menu, then set the time you want to activate the night mode. You will most likely need to select 7 or 8 PM, but the choice is ultimately up to you. After that, make sure that the Recur every option is set to 1 day, so that the task is repeated every day, then click OK.

 

After that, go to the Actions section and press the New button to create the required actions in this task, so make sure to select the "Start a program" option from the Action menu and in the Program/script field write "reg" and then in the field in front of Add arguments copy and paste The path below has:

 

add HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize /v AppsUseLightTheme /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

 

After completion, press "OK" to save the first procedure responsible for activating the dark mode for applications only.

 

As you probably know, the night mode in Windows 11 can only be applied to programs and apps or only to system items like the taskbar, start menu, etc., or both. So, since the previous procedure was limited to activating the night mode for applications only, we now need to create a second action responsible for activating the night mode for system elements. So we will press again on the New button and do the same previous steps, using the following command this time:

 

add HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize /v SystemUsesLightTheme /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

 

 

After completing the required actions, go to the "Conditions" section and disable the "Start the task only if the computer is on AC power" option so that this task is run regardless of whether the laptop is connected to the charger or not.

 

Finally, go to the "Settings" section and activate the "Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed" option, as well as the "If the task fails, restart every option" option so that if the attempt to run the task fails for any reason, Windows restarts it again. others without your intervention. In the end, click on "OK" to create a task to schedule the activation of night mode in Windows 11.

 

Just scheduling night mode isn't very useful as long as Windows won't switch back to bright mode again on its own. To solve this problem, we also need to create another task in the Task Scheduler tool to schedule the activation of the bright mode and let me tell you that the method is the same as we explained through the previous lines, however, there are a few things that you will need to do differently.

 

Initially, after pressing Create Task, specify the name of the task; Let it be "Auto Switch to Light mode", then in the Tigger section, set the time to turn on the mode and suggest here 6 or 7 in the morning, depending on the time of sunrise, for example.

 

After that, go to the Actions section, click New, then select Start a Program, and in the Program/script field, you will write “reg” as it was in the first task, then enter the following path in the Add arguments field:

 

add HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize /v AppsUseLightTheme /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

 

After completing this procedure, we will create a second procedure to activate the bright mode for Windows elements, but this time we will use the following path:

 

add HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize /v SystemUsesLightTheme /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

 

That's all there is to it, now the Windows 11 desktop has become more adapted to your day, as soon as night falls, the colors become dark (in applications and programs that support night mode only) and then the matter is reflected in the morning every day. However, you can also manually activate these processes by heading to the “Task Scheduler Library” section of the Task Scheduler side menu, then right-clicking on the process you want to run and clicking Run. From this menu, you can also disable the process or delete it completely.