Finder window (Save As/Export, etc) show up in light color even though the system/app theme is dark

[msingleton]

I know its not a huge issue but as a designer its a little irritating. When running under the darkest theme in Illustrator and Indesign the open, save, export, and place dialogues are all in light themes even with the OS in Dark mode. All of the dialouges in Photoshop however show up dark.

{Renamed by MOD}

[Ashutosh_Mishra]

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out. You can always change the color theme of InDesign under Preferences > Interface.

I have also attached a screenshot as well for reference.

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Ashutosh

[halogen88]

Hi, as it's been almost two years and this issue still occurs in the latest version of InDesign, can you please provide an update, date for a fix, do something, anything at all?

[msingleton]

Agreed, its very strange. And just for documented refrenece here is the Save As dialogue in Indesign compared to Photoshop.

[msingleton]

While Im at it.

Illustrator.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Ashutosh:

I think the OP is pointing out that even with the dark interface selected, those four specific dialog boxes are still light. I have my Mac in dark mode as well as InDesign in dark mode and those dialog boxes don't honor it. It bothers me as well—my eyes are very sensitive to light.

~Barb

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

Having Ashtuosh (an Adobe employee) on this thread is helpful, but I recommend filing a bug report for both apps:

• InDesign: https://indesign.uservoice.com/
• Illustrator: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/

If you come back here and post the links, I will vote for them.

~Barb

[Srishti Bali]

Hi Barb,

Thanks you so much for reaching out and highlighting this. I understand your concern but this is an expected behavior in all Adobe Applications (even with PS).

I will pass on this feedback to our Product team and you could you also post it on our UserVoice page and paste the link here, so that others can also upvote this request. 

Regards,

Srishti

[halogen88]

Can we get an update on this as it was 7 months ago, and Dark Mode in MacOS was released widespread 2.5+ years ago.

Yet this still doesn't work, and nothing has been communicated to users.

We expect more from an industry leader in creative software.

[msingleton]

Funny, I was just thinking about this again myself. I went ahead and put in some user interface bug reports.

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-desktop-bugs/suggestions/42086857-dialog...

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/42086800-some-dialogue-...

[Barb Binder]

Hi Srishti:

Oddly, Photoshop honors the dark interface for those dialog boxes.

~Barb

[Srishti Bali]

Thanks for sharing this, Barb. I will pass it on to our engineers to look into this. 

Regards!

[Arturo9to7]

It has gotten even worse.

In the latest version of InDesign (16.01) the dialog boxes do not remember resizing, and always appear in default size.

They are still white even if the Dark mode is enabled in system and Indesign has dark interface.

It seems that the focus in Adobe software development is not on usability that such a basic things can not be fixed for so long time. Stop developing all those new marketing features and concentrate on making everything you have crammed into your programs work, so that they become usable for real work again.

BTW with latest 2 updates I have had hundreds of crashes with basic functions, way more than in previous years combined. Indesign has become a major obstacle on getting my work done in time.

[halogen88]

Over one year later. No change, no update, no improvement.

No surprise.

Can we get an update on this?

[kj8675309]

I agree, it is very annoying and does not do this with the menus in Photoshop and Illustrator so it is def a bug!

[PixelFactory Agency]

Any news about it?

I guess enough time has passed for the Adobe team to fix such a little thing like this.

[gunnarlinn]

+1. Very annoying, both the original issue and the fact that nothing happens.

[Christopher-James · Accepted solution]

Hi @msingleton 

I know this is an old thread but the answer from @Ashutosh_Mishra - Adobe Employee just said a lot about how Adobe are blind to anything any end user has to say, they don't even read a post correctly, time and time again!

You can force dark mode for the finder UI windows for InDesign for Mac using this command through the Terminal app.

Currently on InDesign 17.4

1. Make sure InDesign is closed
2. Open a new terminal window
3. Copy and paste the below code and press return
4. Open InDesign and test

defaults write com.adobe.InDesign NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool NO

 Hope this makes you happy that now all adobe apps have the same UI, it makes me happy (kind of, just now have to assign global palette names!!)

[gunnarlinn]

Hey, works great. Many thanks.

[halogen88]

Thank you so much for this. Good to see there are people on here that still help folks out.

[Barb Binder]

This is great @Christopher-James, thank you so much for sharing!

~Barb (and all the other light-sensitive InDesign users out there)

[Amanda28682398jj1k]

That worked Thanks So much !

[Guest]

THANK YOU!  Finally something that fixes this, no thanks to Adobe.  It's 2023 and still no fix from Adobe — they make their users hard code settings on the command line that should work by default.

[KittyGirl24159]

THANK YOU!!!! omg, been waiting on a fix for this issue for years now. Much appreciated.

[exploirs]

Thank you for this @Christopher-James 

It is unbelivable how Adobe has not fixed this yet.