Documentación offline Tailwind CSS main
por @raupulus

Dark mode

main Ver versión oficial en línea Licencia MITDescargado el 2026-09-15 Bundle .md (1.3 MB) ↓

En esta página

Overview#

Now that dark mode is a first-class feature of many operating systems, it's becoming more and more common to design a dark version of your website to go along with the default design.

To make this as easy as possible, Tailwind includes a dark variant that lets you style your site differently when dark mode is enabled:

{

Light mode

Writes upside-down

The Zero Gravity Pen can be used to write in any orientation, including upside-down. It even works in outer space.} />

Dark mode

Writes upside-down

The Zero Gravity Pen can be used to write in any orientation, including upside-down. It even works in outer space.} />

}

<!-- [!code word:dark\:bg-gray-800] -->
<!-- prettier-ignore -->
<div class="bg-white dark:bg-gray-800 rounded-lg px-6 py-8 ring shadow-xl ring-gray-900/5">
  <div>
    <span class="inline-flex items-center justify-center rounded-md bg-indigo-500 p-2 shadow-lg">
      <svg class="h-6 w-6 stroke-white" ...>
        <!-- ... -->
      </svg>
    </span>
  </div>
  <!-- prettier-ignore -->
  <!-- [!code word:dark\:text-white] -->
  <h3 class="text-gray-900 dark:text-white mt-5 text-base font-medium tracking-tight ">Writes upside-down</h3>
  <!-- prettier-ignore -->
  <!-- [!code word:dark\:text-gray-400] -->
  <p class="text-gray-500 dark:text-gray-400 mt-2 text-sm ">
    The Zero Gravity Pen can be used to write in any orientation, including upside-down. It even works in outer space.
  </p>
</div>

By default this uses the prefers-color-scheme CSS media feature, but you can also build sites that support toggling dark mode manually by overriding the dark variant.

Toggling dark mode manually#

If you want your dark theme to be driven by a CSS selector instead of the prefers-color-scheme media query, override the dark variant to use your custom selector:

/* [!code filename:app.css] */
@import "tailwindcss";

/* [!code highlight:2] */
@custom-variant dark (&:where(.dark, .dark *));

Now instead of dark:* utilities being applied based on prefers-color-scheme, they will be applied whenever the dark class is present earlier in the HTML tree:

<!-- [!code filename:HTML] -->
<!-- [!code word:dark\:bg-black] -->
<!-- [!code word:dark] -->
<html class="dark">
  <body>
    <div class="bg-white dark:bg-black">
      <!-- ... -->
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

How you add the dark class to the html element is up to you, but a common approach is to use a bit of JavaScript that updates the class attribute and syncs that preference to somewhere like localStorage.

Using a data attribute#

To use a data attribute instead of a class to activate dark mode, just override the dark variant with an attribute selector instead:

/* [!code filename:app.css] */
@import "tailwindcss";

/* [!code highlight:2] */
@custom-variant dark (&:where([data-theme=dark], [data-theme=dark] *));

Now dark mode utilities will be applied whenever the data-theme attribute is set to dark somewhere up the tree:

<!-- [!code filename:HTML] -->
<!-- [!code word:dark\:bg-black] -->
<!-- [!code word:data-theme="dark"] -->
<html data-theme="dark">
  <body>
    <div class="bg-white dark:bg-black">
      <!-- ... -->
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

With system theme support#

To build three-way theme toggles that support light mode, dark mode, and your system theme, use a custom dark mode selector and the window.matchMedia() API to detect the system theme and update the html element when needed.

Here's a simple example of how you can support light mode, dark mode, as well as respecting the operating system preference:

// [!code filename:spaghetti.js]
// On page load or when changing themes, best to add inline in `head` to avoid FOUC
document.documentElement.classList.toggle(
  "dark",
  localStorage.theme === "dark" ||
    (!("theme" in localStorage) && window.matchMedia("(prefers-color-scheme: dark)").matches),
);

// Whenever the user explicitly chooses light mode
localStorage.theme = "light";

// Whenever the user explicitly chooses dark mode
localStorage.theme = "dark";

// Whenever the user explicitly chooses to respect the OS preference
localStorage.removeItem("theme");

Again you can manage this however you like, even storing the preference server-side in a database and rendering the class on the server — it's totally up to you.