Mojave Dark Mode tried to improve upon the selective Dark Mode previously available but unless it is your thing, it is just TOO much. Safari, Mail, Messages - most of these apps don't look great in Dark Mode. Not to me at least. But stay on High Sierra just to get the earlier version. No thanks.
A few terminal commands will do the trick. Most of this comes from the folks over at TekRevue.com.
Now there is NightOwl which will let you flip back and forth or schedule Dark Mode to change with the time of day like your wallpaper does as well as right click on the menubar item to quickly switch from one mode to the other if you don't like the app you are in to be in the mode your were in. Too much fiddling. Too cumbersome. LightsOff claims to allow per app application of Dark Mode, but I didn't find that it worked very well. And to be honest, fewer apps in my experience look good in Dark Mode than they do in Light.
So, here is the remedy I found best.
First, switch the MenuBar and Dock to Dark Mode via this trick. That gives you folders from the dock and your dock and menubar in a nice dark effect.
https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/only-dark-menu-bar-dock-mojave/
1. System Prefs - General - Choose Light
2. Terminal command - defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool Yes
3. Log Out - Log Back In - System Prefs - General - Choose Dark
4. Reboot
Then for the Apps themselves. There is an article at tekrevue on how to exclude apps from Dark Mode. Rather than doing all that. I just applied the opposite approach and changed the command to put the apps I wanted like Photos, Books, and some others into Dark Mode.
Terminal
1. Get the ID of the App. - command - osascript -e 'id of app "App Name"'
REPLACE App Name with the actual name of the app.
It will return something like com.apple.Photos
2.Terminal command - defaults write Bundle Identifier NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool no
REPLACE Bundle Identifier with the ID such as com.apple.Photos
Now Photos will always open in Dark Mode
Here is the article from TekRevue.com
https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/exclude-app-dark-mode-macos-mojave/
Now I have my MenuBar and only the Apps I want in Dark Mode
A few terminal commands will do the trick. Most of this comes from the folks over at TekRevue.com.
Now there is NightOwl which will let you flip back and forth or schedule Dark Mode to change with the time of day like your wallpaper does as well as right click on the menubar item to quickly switch from one mode to the other if you don't like the app you are in to be in the mode your were in. Too much fiddling. Too cumbersome. LightsOff claims to allow per app application of Dark Mode, but I didn't find that it worked very well. And to be honest, fewer apps in my experience look good in Dark Mode than they do in Light.
So, here is the remedy I found best.
First, switch the MenuBar and Dock to Dark Mode via this trick. That gives you folders from the dock and your dock and menubar in a nice dark effect.
https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/only-dark-menu-bar-dock-mojave/
1. System Prefs - General - Choose Light
2. Terminal command - defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool Yes
3. Log Out - Log Back In - System Prefs - General - Choose Dark
4. Reboot
Then for the Apps themselves. There is an article at tekrevue on how to exclude apps from Dark Mode. Rather than doing all that. I just applied the opposite approach and changed the command to put the apps I wanted like Photos, Books, and some others into Dark Mode.
Terminal
1. Get the ID of the App. - command - osascript -e 'id of app "App Name"'
REPLACE App Name with the actual name of the app.
It will return something like com.apple.Photos
2.Terminal command - defaults write Bundle Identifier NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool no
REPLACE Bundle Identifier with the ID such as com.apple.Photos
Now Photos will always open in Dark Mode
Here is the article from TekRevue.com
https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/exclude-app-dark-mode-macos-mojave/
Now I have my MenuBar and only the Apps I want in Dark Mode