When we stare at TradingView charts for several hours, the default light theme can become painful to the eyes – especially so when we work with TradingView at night. Luckily, TradingView has a special dark theme. Let"s see how we enable that night view mode.

# Change TradingView"s appearance with themes

There are two themes in TradingView at this time: the default ‘Light’ theme and a ‘Dark’ theme. These themes change everything about TradingView"s look: the chart, Pine Editor, drawing windows and their toolbars, Watchlist, Screener window, sidebar, and the ‘Create Alert’ window all get different colours when we change the theme.

Let"s see how we switch between themes in TradingView. But before we do, first two important tips.

# Two tips before changing the TradingView theme

Here are two important tips before you change TradingView"s theme:

# Save the custom chart template first

When we switch a theme, the chart"s visual settings are reset to the standard colours of the ‘Light’ or ‘Dark’ theme. Those chart settings include the colour of price bars, wicks, and borders, as well as the styling of the price line.

That means we can lose our custom chart template when we switch between themes. And so it"s a good idea to save the chart template beforehand.

Here"s how we do that:

• Right-click somewhere on the price chart and select ‘Color Theme’ from the right-click menu.
• Go to the ‘Save As…’ option to save your current chart template.

# Use ‘Undo’ to get the chart template back

If you switched themes but don"t have a recent chart template saved, know that the ‘Undo’ button can undo the theme"s changes to the chart template. This makes it possible to still get your chart"s custom colour settings back.

Click on the ‘Undo’ button as often as needed to get the ‘Undo Apply Chart Theme’ command:

# Enable the ‘Dark’ night view theme in TradingView

There are two ways to enable the dark theme in TradingView. Let"s take a look.

# Option 1) Enable dark theme with ‘hamburger menu’

To switch TradingView to use the dark theme, first open the main menu. To do that click on the so-called ‘hamburger’ icon in the top left.

In that menu you can use the ‘Dark color theme’ toggle to enable TradingView"s dark theme:

If you tweaked the chart"s visual settings earlier, then TradingView asks if you want to change the chart"s template as well:

There are two options:

• If you choose ‘No’, TradingView keeps using the original chart template. That means everything in TradingView becomes black except for the chart window, where your original chart template is kept. In my case that would be a white chart that has blue and red bars:

• If you choose ‘Yes’, TradingView becomes completely black including the chart layout. This makes TradingView use the default dark theme for the chart (and that replaces your custom chart appearance).

# Option 2) Enable dark theme in the chart"s right-click menu

The second approach to enable TradingView"s dark theme is quicker and only requires two clicks.

First right-click on the chart. Then in the right-click menu navigate to ‘Color Theme’ (TradingView Blog, 2017). There enable the night view theme with a click on the ‘Dark’ setting:

A click on that ‘Dark’ option from the right-click menu changes TradingView"s appearance to:

# Activate the ‘Light’ colour theme in TradingView

Besides the ‘Dark’ night view theme there"s also the light, white-tinted colour theme. Here are two ways to activate that theme:

# Option 1) Change the theme in the main menu

The first way to enable the ‘Light’ theme is through the main menu. For this click on the ‘hamburger’ icon in the top left.

In the menu that this opens, choose the ‘Dark color theme’ switch to go to the light theme:

If you customised the dark chart template (which affects the chart"s price bars, background, and line colour), then a click on the ‘Light’ option brings up a confirmation window:

This window asks if you want to switch the chart template as well. There are two options:

• Choose ‘Yes’ to use the original chart layout that belongs to the ‘White’ theme. This means you"ll lose the custom dark chart template (see the tip above for how to save chart templates).

• Select ‘No’ to have TradingView use the light theme, except for your chart area. The chart will still use the settings it had under the dark theme. Here"s how that looks:

# Option 2) Enable the light theme in the chart"s right-click menu

The second way to switch to the ‘Light’ theme is much quicker. First right-click somewhere on the price chart. That opens the right-click menu. There navigate to ‘Color Theme’ and select ‘Light’:

A click on that ‘Light’ option in the right-click menu makes TradingView uses the white, light theme:

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