Mawu Dark Mode for the Admin Dashboard, Editor & Website

Install and activate Mawu, then open Mawu in the admin menu, pick the theme you like and click “Use”. The whole admin changes straight away. You can switch back to WordPress’s default scheme from the same page.

Yes. Click the moon or sun button in the top admin bar, on any screen. It switches at once, without reloading the page, and remembers both your dark theme and your light scheme. Hover the button to pick another theme. Ctrl+Alt+D does the same, and you can pick your own key combination on the Mawu settings page or on your profile. You can also turn on a floating button in the corner, in the Admin section of the Mawu settings page.

Yes. The toolbar, sidebars, buttons and the writing canvas all follow your chosen theme.

Yes. Turn on “Classic Editor: dark writing area” in the Admin section of the Mawu settings page. It applies when the Classic Editor plugin is active.

Yes, two ways. On Mawu → More settings → Schedule (or your Profile screen), under “When should dark mode be on?”, choose “On a schedule”, set your hours and pick a theme. Mawu switches to it during those hours and back to your usual scheme the rest of the day. Or choose “Match my device”: the admin follows your computer’s or phone’s light or dark setting, and changes as soon as it does. Both are per person. A click on the dark mode switch still wins until the next change.

Not unless you turn on dark mode for visitors under Mawu → More settings → Frontend. It is off by default. Admin dark mode never changes your public site.

It is tested with the default WordPress themes and popular themes such as Astra, Kadence, GeneratePress, Blocksy, OceanWP and Neve, and with Elementor and other page builders. If a part of your page looks wrong, add its CSS selector to the exclude list, or tick “Never darken” on that page, and please tell us in the support forum.

Yes, in most cases. Mawu reads their real colors, so it works without a list of supported plugins. If something stays light, please open a support topic with the plugin’s name.

Yes. Add ?mawu=dark to any link, for example https://example.com/?mawu=dark . Use ?mawu=light for light, or ?mawu=auto to follow the visitor’s device again. The choice is remembered like a click on the switch, and the parameter is removed from the address bar. It only works while dark mode for visitors is on. Page caches are not affected, because the page itself never changes.

Yes, with Mawu Pro. Under Mawu → More settings → Frontend, open “Your site’s own look” and pick “My site is dark”. Your site stays dark as it is, and the switch offers a light version made from the theme you choose. Photos keep their own look.

Yes. Every word the switch shows or reads out can be translated, for example with Loco Translate. Text you type in the Switch settings is registered with WPML and Polylang, so you can translate it in their string translation screens.

No. Mawu tells the browser which mode each page is in, so Chrome’s forced dark leaves it alone. It also asks Dark Reader to stand down, and if an older Dark Reader paints the page anyway, Mawu steps back so nothing is darkened twice. With iOS Smart Invert, photos are not dimmed a second time. In Windows contrast themes, the switch still shows its state.

Not unless you opt in. Dark mode runs in your browser and your own WordPress install. Pro’s visitor stats, if you turn them on, are stored on your own site only (see Privacy). Mawu uses Freemius for Pro licensing, and its opt-in screen on activation can be skipped. See External services above for what is sent if you opt in.

Yes. Mawu Pro and the Agency plan are available now. The free plugin stays complete: every theme, both editors, the login page, the quick switch, the schedule and dark mode for visitors stay free. Pro adds a theme builder, intensity and OLED black, sunset-to-sunrise and weekly schedules, site controls for roles and screens, more visitor switch designs and colours, dark versions of your images, videos, logo and site icon, rules by category, tag, post type and WooCommerce product (never darken, start dark or hide the switch), a light version for sites that are dark by design, visitor stats (how many visitors use dark mode, and why) with weekly or monthly email reports, and seasonal effects (snow with the Christmas themes, ghosts and bats with the Halloween ones). Agency covers up to 100 sites and has everything in Pro, plus white-label, client lock, settings sync between sites and multisite network controls. There is a 30-day free trial, with no payment needed to start. See Mawu → More settings → Tools.

Yes. On Mawu → More settings → Tools, “Download settings file” saves one small .json file with the site’s Mawu options and your own theme and schedule. On the other site, choose that file and click “Check file”. Mawu shows what will change, and nothing is saved until you click Apply. Themes the other site doesn’t have are skipped.

Yes, with WordPress’s own Additional CSS: Appearance → Customize → Additional CSS, or in a block theme the Site Editor’s Styles → Additional CSS. Start each rule with html[data-mawu-mode="dark"] so it applies only while a visitor has dark mode on:

html[data-mawu-mode="dark"] .site-footer { background: #000; }

Additional CSS only reaches your public site. For CSS in the admin (added by your own code or an admin CSS plugin), start each rule with body.admin-color- and the Mawu theme’s name in lower case, so light schemes never match it:

body.admin-color-graphite #adminmenu { border-right: 1px solid #333; }

Mawu adjusts other plugins’ screens automatically, but your own CSS loads first, so light panels can show for a moment before Mawu reaches them. To avoid that, use Mawu’s color variables with your normal color as the fallback:

background: var(--mawu-surface, #fff); color: var(--mawu-text, #1d2327);

Available: --mawu-bg , --mawu-surface , --mawu-surface-alt , --mawu-border , --mawu-text , --mawu-text-muted , --mawu-accent and --mawu-link . They are set on <body> only when the person viewing uses a Mawu theme, so nothing changes for anyone else.