Can I read a PDF in dark mode on my phone?

Last reviewed: October 20, 2026 · Markdown version

Yes, though turning on your phone's dark mode is often not enough by itself. Dark mode darkens an app's menus and toolbars; whether it also turns a white PDF page dark depends on the reader. On iPhone, Apple's Preview app has a Dark Background option for PDFs; on Android, Chrome carries its dark theme over to PDFs; and Adobe Acrobat on both has a Night Mode switch. If your reader has none of these, the accessibility colour inversion setting darkens everything, PDFs included.

iPhone: Preview's Dark Background

Apple's guide to the Preview app lists the switch among its viewing options: "Turn on Dark Background for a PDF: With Dark Mode turned on, tap, then tap Dark Background" (Open and view PDFs and images in Preview on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 20 October 2026). Note the condition: the phone has to be in Dark Mode first. Apple's steps for that are Settings, then Display & Brightness, then Dark, or the Control Center button; you can also schedule it from Sunset to Sunrise (Adjust the screen brightness and color on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 20 October 2026).

Books is the other built-in reader. Its Themes & Settings menu has a background mode and page themes, but Apple's page describes them while reading a book and says nothing about whether they change a PDF page (Read books in the Books app on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 20 October 2026). Its separate page on PDFs in Books covers opening, sharing and marking up, and does not mention themes either (Read PDF documents in the Books app on iPhone, read 20 October 2026). So try it on your own file rather than counting on it.

Android: Chrome follows its theme

Google's page on PDFs in Chrome for Android says it plainly: "Your dark mode and dynamic color preferences in Chrome carry over to your PDF" (Manage PDFs in Chrome (Android), Google Chrome Help, read 20 October 2026). That page also says these PDF features need Android 12 and up. Chrome's own theme is under More, Settings, Theme, where "System Default" follows the phone and "Dark" forces it (Browse in Dark mode or Dark theme (Android), Google Chrome Help, read 20 October 2026).

The Google Drive app has a theme setting too, Menu, Settings, Choose theme, with "Dark, Light, or System default", and Google says the setting is there "to make it easier to view files on your device" (Use Dark Mode in Google Drive (Android), Google Drive Help, read 20 October 2026). The page does not say whether the page of a PDF previewed in Drive turns dark or only the app around it, so treat that as untested until you have looked.

Acrobat on either phone: Night Mode

Adobe documents a dedicated switch in its mobile app. Open the PDF, tap More options, choose View settings, and then: "To display the text in light color against a dark screen, tap the Night Mode toggle." The same panel has a Keep screen on toggle, and the steps are given for both Android and iOS (Choose PDF viewing modes, Adobe Acrobat Help, read 20 October 2026).

The switch that works in any app

When a reader has no dark option of its own, both phones can invert the screen. Apple: in Settings, Accessibility, Display & Text Size, "Smart Invert: Reverse colors everywhere except images", or "Classic Invert: Reverse all the colors onscreen", which Apple suggests for "apps and websites that don’t support Dark Mode" (Change display colors on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 20 October 2026). Google: "Color inversion applies to everything on your device, including media. For example, black text on a white screen becomes white text on a black screen", found under Settings, Accessibility, Color and motion, Color inversion. Google also describes an expanded dark theme on Android 16 and newer that "automatically darkens interfaces", and warns that both it and inversion "can impact color quality or legibility" (Turn on dark theme & color inversion, Android Accessibility Help, read 20 October 2026).

One practical note of ours: inversion also flips photos, charts and coloured highlights in the PDF, so a scanned page or a colour-coded chart can become hard to read. Smart Invert on iPhone leaves images alone, which is why it is usually the better of Apple's two.

If you are still choosing which reader to keep, the free PDF readers page compares what each one costs you, and changing the default reader on iPhone makes the dark one open by default.