HOWTO - disable macOS (Mojave) dark mode for a specific/single app

Introduction

While macOS Dark mode is great, in general, I find myself confusing it with specific app modes. Namely, Google Chrome Icognito.

Therefore, the following instructions provide a quickstart/reminder of how to disable Dark Mode for particular apps.

Find the application Bundle

Use the osascript command to find the Bundle name:

osascript -e 'id of app "Some Random App"'

For example, Google Chrome:

osascript -e 'id of app "Google Chrome"'

Disable Dark mode for a Bundle

Now use the following command to disable the app Bundle_Identifier retrived from the previous step:

defaults write Bundle_Identifier NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool yes

Continuing the previous example:

defaults write com.google.Chrome NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool yes

Restart

Unfortunately, one must restart the app in order for the new settings to take effect :(

Resetting

For whatever reason, should you want to reset the Bundle to defaults use the following command:

defaults delete Bundle_Identifier NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance

References

All credit goes to the following post (this is just a tl;dr :)

  • https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/exclude-app-dark-mode-macos-mojave/