How to disable Night mode in iPhone’s Camera app

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How to disable iPhone's Night mode
Some low-light photos look better without Night mode.
Image: Apple/Cult of Mac

Want to capture a low-light photo without using the Night mode feature on newer iPhone models? It’s real easy to turn off right inside the built-in Camera app. We’ll show you how.

Night mode, available on iPhone 11 and iPhone 12, is a brilliant addition to the Camera app. In most low-light situations, it can dramatically improve brightness and yield fantastic results. But it’s not always welcome.

If you want your image to be dark, perhaps because you’re taking a photo of colorful lights, Night mode can ruin it. And it’s enabled by default on all supported iPhone models. But you can turn it off.

Disable Night mode on iPhone

Simply follow these steps when taking a photo in low light:

  1. Open iPhone’s built-in Camera app.
  2. Tap the Night mode button in the top-left corner of the screen (in portrait orientation) or bottom-left corner of the screen (in landscape orientation).
  3. Drag the slider near the Camera’s shutter button to Off.

You can now go ahead and snap your photo with Night mode disabled.

How to disable iPhone's Night mode
Tap the Night mode button, then move the slider to “Off.”
Screenshots: Cult of Mac

The next time you use the Camera app in low-light, Night mode will be activated automatically again. To reenable it manually, tap the Night mode button again, then drag the slider until to Auto.

Unlike Live Photos, there is no way to disable Night mode permanently in the Camera’s settings. So disabling it manually when you don’t want to use it — which probably won’t be too often anyway — is the only way.

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