Discord will not remove the pure black AMOLED theme for Non-Nitro users

An upcoming redesign on Discord hinted at the removal of the pure-black OLED theme, but the CTO has confirmed through a reply on X that the theme will remain and that the rumors are false. There are no plans to make the dark theme exclusive to Discord Nitro.

The spotted ‘clue’ was in the color codes. According to a post from Wumpus Central on X, the platform has supposedly updated the UI elements from #000000 (OLED back) to #0C0C0E (gray). 

If this actually happened, and it wasn’t a bug, the only way to get the pure black background would be via the Custom Themes feature, and that’s only accessible through a Nitro subscription.

The redesign apparently unifies UI elements to feel more iOS-like. It adds frames to buttons, and there are minor tweaks throughout the app. These changes will be added gradually, with updates to the app.

Using pure black on OLED screens saves a lot of battery life, since it turns pixels off for dark areas. For the gray theme, more pixels will stay partially lit, leading to worse overall battery life. Locking up such a simple feature behind Nitro would’ve made the battery experience of Non-Nitro users worse.

Many people expressed disappointment at Discord allegedly paywalling such a simple feature, but the CTO of Discord personally responded on X, stating that it’s just a bug, and that the pure black theme will not be removed, and won’t be paywalled either. Discord has no intentions of breaking OLED efficiency. 

He also mentioned that he’s a power user himself and that they’re continuing to make it better over time, but some changes won’t work for everyone.

The CTO also officially confirmed that the mobile app themes are being aligned with the desktop app, and that he’s a ‘Midnight theme’ user himself. Rumors of the app paywalling the pure black theme, however, are completely false. You can rest assured that it will continue to exist for free on the app. This whole situation demonstrates how it’s important to wait for a word from officials before jumping to conclusions. 

It’s not just a UI redesign that’s going on at Discord. The platform is also heavily cracking down on automated chat exporters. You can read about that here.

Featured image credit: @WumpusCentral / X

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