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Dark mode

Learn about the different methods for applying dark mode to a Joy UI app.

Media prefers-color-scheme

Create a theme with colorSchemeSelector: 'media' to use @media (prefers-color-scheme) instead of the default data-joy-color-scheme attribute.

import { extendTheme } from '@mui/joy/styles';

const theme = extendTheme({
  colorSchemeSelector: 'media',
});

function App() {
  return <CssVarsProvider theme={theme}>...</CssVarsProvider>;
}

Identify the system mode

Use the useColorScheme React hook to check if the user's preference is in light or dark mode:

import { useColorScheme } from '@mui/joy/styles';

function SomeComponent() {
  const { mode, systemMode } = useColorScheme();
  console.log(mode); // "system"
  console.log(systemMode); // "light" | "dark" based on the user's preference.
}
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Creating a mode-toggle component

You can create a toggle component to give users the option to select between modes.

In the example below, we're using a Select component that calls setMode from the useColorSchemes() hook to handle the mode switching.

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Server-side rendering notes

Avoid hydration mismatch

Make sure to render the UI when the page is mounted on the client.

This is because the mode will only be available to the client-side (it is undefined on the server). If you try to render your UI based on the server, before mounting on the client, you'll see a hydration mismatch error.

 function ModeToggle() {
   const { mode, setMode } = useColorScheme();
   const [mounted, setMounted] = React.useState(false);

+  React.useEffect(() => {
+    setMounted(true);
+  }, []);
+
+  if (!mounted) {
+    // to avoid layout shift, render a placeholder button
+    return <Button variant="outlined" color="neutral" sx={{ width: 120 }} />;
+  }

   return (
     <Button
       variant="outlined"
       color="neutral"
       onClick={() => setMode(mode === 'dark' ? 'light' : 'dark')}
     >
       {mode === 'dark' ? 'Turn light' : 'Turn dark'}
     </Button>
   );
 };

Avoiding screen flickering

To prevent the UI from flickering, apply <InitColorSchemeScript /> before the main application script－it varies across frameworks:

Next.js Pages Router

To use the Joy UI API with a Next.js project, add the following code to the custom pages/_document.js file:

import Document, { Html, Head, Main, NextScript } from 'next/document';
import InitColorSchemeScript from '@mui/joy/InitColorSchemeScript';

export default class MyDocument extends Document {
  render() {
    return (
      <Html data-color-scheme="light">
        <Head>...</Head>
        <body>
          <InitColorSchemeScript />
          <Main />
          <NextScript />
        </body>
      </Html>
    );
  }
}

Next.js App Router

To use the Joy UI API with a Next.js project with the App Router, add the following code to the root layout file in order to prevent flickering:

app/layout.js
import InitColorSchemeScript from '@mui/joy/InitColorSchemeScript';
import { CssVarsProvider } from '@mui/joy/styles';
import CssBaseline from '@mui/joy/CssBaseline';

export default function RootLayout(props) {
  return (
    <html lang="en" suppressHydrationWarning={true}>
      <body>
        <InitColorSchemeScript />
        <CssVarsProvider>
          <CssBaseline />
          {props.children}
        </CssVarsProvider>
      </body>
    </html>
  );
}