Dramatic “Material You” colors are coming to desktop versions of Chrome Canary

It looks like the debut of Google’s color-changing “Material You” design language is finally coming to Chrome, at least in the Canary versions. Redditor Leopeva64-2 spotted new flags in the latest nightly builds that automatically recolor Chrome’s UI based on the wallpaper you choose, just like Android.

If you want to try this now, you’ll need to get a copy of Chrome Canary and enable two flags (paste them in the address bar): “chrome://flags/#customize-chrome-color-extraction ,” and “chrome://flags/#ntp-comprehensive-theming.” Once these are enabled, choosing a Chrome wallpaper from the “customize” button at the bottom right of the new tab page will also change the color of the tab bar. Another flag at “chrome://flags/#ntp-comprehensive-theming” will also apply those colors to the new tab page search bar.

Material You launched in 2021 with Android 12. Along with a new set of guidelines for UI component sizes and shapes, Material You also came with an automatic color system. Android can automatically extract colors from your wallpaper and apply them to the UI, with many magic algorithms to ensure there are no contrast issues. It works great if you like a colorful UI and it gives Android a unique look.

When Google announced Material You, company-wide VP of Design, Matias Duarte, said the new design language would eventually roll out to “the web, Chrome OS, devices… wearables, smart displays and all Google products”. Since then, we’ve seen desktop Gmail adopt a more colorful UI, but Material You’s color scheme hasn’t been seen much outside of Android.

I don’t know if it’s fair to call Chrome’s color scheme Material You right now, because the colors are much bolder and more distracting than what Android normally uses. Android creates lots of light pastels from your wallpaper by adjusting brightness values ​​to maintain readable contrast and fit Google’s design intent. The result is usually just lightly tinted backgrounds with brighter colors reserved for important action buttons. Chrome is currently the other way around, with extremely bright background colors that are likely a distraction when trying to focus on a webpage. Chrome has had a manual color picker for a while, so even if it becomes the default, you’ll probably be able to turn it off.

This is the first version of Material You, so colors may be toned down in the future, and some of the contrast issues (especially with the white Google logo) will be cleaned up. Chrome’s settings don’t call out the Material You branded color scheme just yet, but Chrome is clearly heading in that direction. Chrome OS added a pledge in June for a “unified switch for the upcoming ChromeOS Material launch.” “Material Next” is the internal name of Material You. It looks like Chrome is finally gearing up for a big overhaul.