Turns out Google’s themed icons were actually broken, but they’re fixed now

We thought Google’s lighter icons were intended behavior, but thankfully the bold beautiful colors are back!

​We thought Google’s lighter icons were intended behavior, but thankfully the bold beautiful colors are back!  Read More Technology

Feature Drops are usually Google’s most exciting updates, but the December iteration left many Pixel users wanting to roll back. Those who use
Material You
themed icons in dark mode were shocked to see their home screens inverted to light mode upon installing the update, but there was an easy enough fix. Except that didn’t put things back exactly the way they were, and at the time, we thought that the new look was intended behavior. Thankfully, it appears this wasn’t the case.

For some background, the December Pixel Feature Drop most certainly had a bug with home screen icons. Everyone who had previously enabled themed icons was shown the light mode versions of these icons after the update — even if they had dark mode enabled.

Luckily, users quickly discovered that going into the Wallpaper & style app and toggling back and forth between the available Material You themes caused the light mode icons to turn dark again. Except, even then, the icons were strangely lighter than they had been previously.

At the time, evidence suggested this was intended behavior. Google had previously been spotted tweaking the contrast of its Material You themes while the update was in development, so the prevailing theory in December was that these washed-out dark mode icons were the new normal.

After installing the January 2025 Pixel security update, we can confirm that the dark mode icons have reverted to their original, darker state. The bug where icons showed up in their light mode state after updating is also gone.

Themed dark mode icons on the December update (left) vs. the January update (right)

Google acknowledged this fix in its release notes for the January 2025 security patches, saying it had resolved an “issue with Pixel launcher themed icon color display in certain conditions.” But we weren’t sure if this applied to the light mode glitch, the lighter icons, or both. Thankfully, the answer is “both” — balance has finally been restored and all is right with the world again.