Chrome’s built-in color and theme controls now live in the Customize Chrome side panel on the New Tab page. Open a new tab, choose Customize Chrome in the lower-right corner, then use Appearance to pick a background, browser color, or light and dark mode. Your selection previews as you make it. You do not need to enable Chrome flags for this current workflow.
Older guides may describe a separate “Colors and themes” tab and ask you to enable experimental flags such as NTP customization menu version 2. That is the Chrome 78-era interface. Today, Google’s desktop instructions put these controls under Appearance in the New Tab page’s Customize Chrome panel. The wording and available gallery options can change over time, but the basic route is still the New Tab page, Customize Chrome, Appearance.
This guide covers Chrome on a computer. The Android and iPhone New Tab settings use a different interface, so desktop button names may not match what you see on a phone.
Google’s current help page says you need to be signed in to a Google Account and use Google as Chrome’s default search engine to customize the New Tab page. If you use another default search engine, or are signed out, some New Tab controls may not appear. The New Tab page can also be controlled by an extension; Chrome says an extension that manages it is identified in the page footer.
The Light, Dark, and Device choices control Chrome’s overall appearance. Choose Light or Dark to set it directly, or Device to have Chrome follow your computer’s appearance setting. This is separate from choosing a background image: you can keep the same image while changing the browser color or light mode.
To undo the built-in theme and colors, open Customize Chrome and select Reset to Default Chrome at the bottom of the panel. If Customize Chrome is missing, first check that you are on a normal Chrome New Tab page, signed in, and using Google as the default search engine. If an extension has replaced or controls the New Tab page, check the footer for its name and review that extension in Chrome’s extension settings.
For Google’s current steps and wording, see Chrome Help: Customize your New Tab page and Chrome Help: Browse in Dark mode or Dark theme. Google also explains how the desktop side panel previews color and theme changes in its Chrome customization overview.
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