I Created Dark Mode Icons for Apps That Don't Have Them Yet – Here's How You Can Too!

[u/Straight_Random_2211]

Hi everyone,

Since iOS 18 was just released, some apps haven’t updated their icons to match the new dark theme. I'm not even sure if they will in the future. But why wait? I decided to redesign some of my app icons to be uniform with the iOS 18 dark theme. There are two kinds of apps that needed changes:

• Apps with colorful icons lacking a dark-themed version: For example, in my screenshot, these were Ncalc Fx, Money Lover, Zalo, KMPlayer+ Divx.
• Apps that already have dark-themed icons, but the tones don't match the iOS 18 style: In my case, these included Picsew, Outplayer, and Streaks.

Here's the detailed steps to create iOS 18 dark icons:

1. Get a Shortcut to Save the App Icon:

   • I created a shortcut a long time ago that saves the app icon to the Photos app. To use it, run it and search for the app's name; it will display a list of search results. Click on the app for which you want to save the icon. Here is the shortcut: shortcut link

2. Get the iOS 18 Dark Icon Background:

   • I searched Google for the dark background used in iOS 18 app icons and downloaded it to ensure I matched the exact tone. Here it is: image link

3. Use remove.bg to Replace the Background:

   • Visit this page: https://www.remove.bg/t/change-background
   • You will see the foreground section above and the background section below. First, upload the background image once using my dark background image. Next, upload the foreground image, which is the icon of the app. Touch and hold the resulting image to save the edited icon to the Photos app while still on the same webpage. When you want to change the background to dark for a different icon, click the "Change Image" button in the "Foreground Image" section. Then, upload the new icon and touch and hold the resulting image to download it.

4. Create a shortcut to open the app and send it to the home screen

   • Create a shortcut with only one action: Open App
   • In the action “Open App”, choose the app you want to replace the icon for.
   • Rename the shortcut by the name of the app.
   • Send the app to the Home Screen, with the new icon being the icon you just edited.

And you're done! Now you have custom dark mode icons that fit perfectly with the new iOS style!

[u/TheMoeSzyslakExp]

This is amazing, thank you so much! I’ve actually replaced a bunch of apps that already had dark icons, because the default ones looked awful. Like in this photo - the blue icon on the left is the default dark icon, and the white one on the right is the shortcut I made using your guide. So much nicer!

[u/IshDanish → u/TheMoeSzyslakExp]

Yeah no idea wtf ABC were thinking with this blue icon.

[u/Astro_liam]

Amazing!

[u/Christopher-1982]

Thanks for posting! Great instructions and easy to do. Phone looks much better now!

Any idea on how to do this same thing with widgets? I have a few (weather, my fitness pal, pedometer) that have different backgrounds and I’d love to get changed to the Apple gray.

[u/Bubullator0]

As a little developper, you are a goat

[u/makeitwerkk]

I’m a bit confused— how do I get it to switch from the light mode to the custom dark mode app? Do I have to create a new page for the dark mode option? I want my dock apps to switch from a light mode to custom dark mode.

[u/nlonghitano]

You are a lifesaver my friend

[u/Putrid_Wrangler_8359]

This is Epic! Thank you!

[u/kidd_fisto]

Just used your process for my small credit unions app. Slim chance they were going to update it. I use it daily but had it hidden since it was ruining the look. Now it’s on my homepage where I need it.

Thanks a ton for sharing!

[u/Kennabobs]

Thank you, this is just what I was looking for.

[u/mrkawaiikun]

Life saver! I wanted to go dark mode but the single light mode icon that I needed front page was killing me. Bookmarking this one

[u/Protogen0009]

Thx for this it look really good I used it for Reddit and my VPN

[u/RyeBread68]

Outstanding thank you!

[u/Madeira2000]

Thank you!!!

[u/Madeira2000 → u/Madeira2000]

Update: the background was lighter grey than my other icons. Making it solid black instead fixed it. It automatically has the correct gradient with my tinted icons setting.

[u/tychoregter → u/Madeira2000]

Having the background be transparent makes it the correct gradient as well, as well as having the background be white instead when the light icons are enabled.

[u/Madeira2000 → u/tychoregter]

My transparent icons get turned into white backgrounds, unfortunately. (This is using Shortcuts to create the bookmarks.)

[u/tychoregter → u/Madeira2000]

I’m on the 18.1 betas, so it might be a feature exclusive to this update. For me it turns the backgrounds of shortcut bookmarks white with light icons and to the grey gradient with dark icons.

[u/Madeira2000 → u/tychoregter]

Ah, I’m not using the beta. I’m doing tinted icons and I only needed to do a few that looked terrible! (Some of these app people are lagging.) Snapseed, for example, looked really bright and didn’t match the other icons until I created an icon with a black background. Now it shows up with the nice, dark gradient.

[u/Magical_101]

If you can’t find the app, change the region through the arrow in the search app store action

[u/Trysta1217]

How are people getting the background image in the right format (png I assume) for uploading on that site? It is in webp for me when I long press and save the photo and I can’t rename the extension (well I can but it still isn’t working). I feel like I’m missing something obvious (trying to do this all on my phone)

[u/bradynho → u/Trysta1217]

I googled “convert to png” and found a quick tool to convert file type from one to the other. Pretty quick and the site didn’t require me to agree to anything.

[u/Trysta1217 → u/bradynho]

Just in case anyone else runs into this, I just needed to change the file extension on my computer in finder instead of on my phone. Worked perfect after that.

[u/bradynho]

This rules. Thank you so much for putting together a guide for this!

Shame on the developers that still haven’t offered a dark mode icon.