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How to Emulate Dark Mode for a Playwright Screenshot

Use Playwright’s colorScheme setting to emulate prefers-color-scheme: dark before capture, then verify both the media query and the page’s actual rendered styles.
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To make a Playwright screenshot use dark mode, emulate the page’s prefers-color-scheme: dark preference before capturing it:

await page.emulateMedia({ colorScheme: 'dark' });
await page.screenshot({ path: 'screenshot.png' });

This tells the page that the user prefers a dark color scheme. Whether the page actually looks dark depends on how its application styles respond to that preference.

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Emulate dark mode on an existing page

Call page.emulateMedia() after creating or navigating to the page and before taking the screenshot. The colorScheme option accepts 'dark' or 'light' in Playwright’s JavaScript and TypeScript APIs.

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await page.emulateMedia({ colorScheme: 'dark' });
await page.screenshot({ path: 'dark-mode.png', fullPage: true });

The same setting works whether you are capturing the viewport or using options such as fullPage. It emulates a media preference; it does not apply a dark theme on the application’s behalf.

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Choose the right configuration scope

Set the preference as close as practical to where you want it to apply. Playwright documents options for a single page, a page or context at creation, a test, a whole test suite, and code generation.

Scope Where to set it Example
One existing page Call page.emulateMedia() before capture. await page.emulateMedia({ colorScheme: 'dark' });
One manually created context or page Pass colorScheme when creating it. browser.newContext({ colorScheme: 'dark' }) or browser.newPage({ colorScheme: 'dark' })
Selected Playwright tests Set colorScheme with test.use() for the relevant tests. test.use({ colorScheme: 'dark' });
Test suite Set it in the Playwright Test configuration’s use options. use: { colorScheme: 'dark' }
Codegen session Pass the documented dark-scheme option to the codegen command. npx playwright codegen --color-scheme=dark <url>

Configure an entire test suite

In playwright.config.ts, set colorScheme inside use:

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import { defineConfig } from '@playwright/test';

export default defineConfig({
  use: {
    colorScheme: 'dark',
  },
});

Use this when the tests in the configured project should consistently run with the dark preference. For a smaller scope, configure only the relevant tests instead of changing the whole suite.

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Set the preference during context or page creation

For a manually managed browser context, pass the option when creating it:

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const context = await browser.newContext({ colorScheme: 'dark' });
const page = await context.newPage();

For a page created directly from the browser, the documented page-creation option is also available:

const page = await browser.newPage({ colorScheme: 'dark' });

Creation-time configuration is useful when the preference should be in effect from the beginning of that page or context, rather than applied later to an existing page.

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Use dark mode with codegen

To generate Playwright code while emulating dark mode, use the documented command:

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npx playwright codegen --color-scheme=dark https://example.com

Replace the URL with the page you want to inspect. This sets the preference for the codegen session; it is separate from configuring a test suite or an existing page.

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Check the emulated preference and the screenshot

You can confirm that the page sees the dark preference by checking the media query:

await page.emulateMedia({ colorScheme: 'dark' });
const prefersDark = await page.evaluate(() =>
  matchMedia('(prefers-color-scheme: dark)').matches
);
console.log(prefersDark);

The dark query should match, while matchMedia('(prefers-color-scheme: light)').matches should not. This verifies the preference exposed to the page, not that the application uses it. Inspect the captured image to confirm that the page’s colors, assets, and components actually changed as intended.

Keep color scheme separate from media type

colorScheme emulates a color preference. The separate media option controls the page’s CSS media type. For example, media: 'print' requests print styles; it does not request dark mode. Set colorScheme: 'dark' for a dark preference, and only set a media type when you also need to emulate a different type of media.

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Troubleshoot a screenshot that stays light

  • The media query is false: Confirm that page.emulateMedia({ colorScheme: 'dark' }) ran on the page being captured and before the screenshot. Check the query with matchMedia('(prefers-color-scheme: dark)').matches.
  • The query matches but the page is still light: The application may not define dark styles for that preference, or its theme may be controlled by another setting. Media emulation exposes the preference; it cannot make an application implement a dark theme.
  • Some components change but others do not: Inspect the actual rendered page. Individual application components, images, embedded content, or third-party widgets may not respond uniformly to the media preference.
  • The screenshot was captured before the setting took effect: Apply the preference before calling page.screenshot(), then capture again.
  • Dark mode was confused with print rendering: Remove media: 'print' if you want screen styling, and set colorScheme: 'dark' independently.

Playwright’s API documentation is rolling documentation and does not identify a publication date in the cited page. If exact behavior matters for a particular project, check the API documentation against the Playwright version installed there. The current API page marks no-preference as deprecated; use 'dark' or 'light' for this task. Passing null disables color-scheme emulation. Playwright Page API: emulateMedia.

Or skip the browser setup

For a screenshot through an API, ScreenshotNeo accepts a URL in one GET request and can return an image or PDF. Its dark-mode option emulates the color preference; the service also removes cookie banners, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before capture. Bot checks, blank pages, and failed loads are never billed, and an MCP server lets AI agents take screenshots. The free plan includes 1,000 screenshots a month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000 shots. See the ScreenshotNeo website and API documentation.

curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webp

After signing up, replace YOUR_API_KEY with your access key and replace the target URL as needed. See the API documentation for request options, including dark mode. Sign up for 1,000 free screenshots a month with no card.

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