But first, let’s see why this feature might prove to be a real game changer.
Dark mode might be more than you think
The dark mode, or “switch background” option, is something entirely new for the Office suite. Outlook has already had the so-called black theme available. But the black theme that’s been around for years has in fact a very limited use in Outlook – it only changes the frame around emails, leaving the actual email body unchanged (usually, the background stays white, which strains your eyes a lot). With dark mode, which is an extension of the black theme, you can change the background, too, making Outlook eyesight-friendly. Take a look below to compare dark mode with the regular “light mode”:
When it comes to dark mode in general, there are, typically, two most distinct kinds of reactions:
- I love it!
- How can you work like that?!
Those who like dark mode appreciate that the screen emits less light. Dark mode is simply more comfortable for your eyes. For some people, prolonged exposure to overwhelming bright background causes headaches. Not to mention that if you check your Outlook at night, those white backgrounds bear a strong resemblance to blinding headlights. Ask most developers if they would like to work in a light IDE…
Those of you who don’t think dark mode is much of a feature should think about all those recipients that might have dark mode enabled. It changes the background of any email. HTML, RTF, plain text – all are converted. Don’t you like your emails to look great in all modes?
How to enable dark mode in Outlook?
The dark mode, night mode, or switch background option is not available in just any Outlook. Currently, to experience the feature you need to use one of these Outlook versions:
- Outlook for Microsoft 365 (Outlook delivered as a part of your Microsoft 365 subscription): the first Outlook version to get this update was the version 1907 of the Insider Channel (released June 21, 2019). Since July 14, 2020 and the version 2002 of the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel, all Outlook for Microsoft 365 versions should include the dark mode feature, as long as you keep your Microsoft Office suite updated to the most recent version.
- Outlook on the web
- Outlook.com
When it comes to the above Outlook versions, dark mode is enabled by default for the black theme.
To enable dark mode in Outlook, you need to have the Black Office theme turned on (Options>General>Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office):
To turn the dark background on in Outlook, you can either use the button next to the reply option:
or the switch background option on the Home or Message tab:
The checkbox never change the message background color disables the dark mode.
In Outlook on the web and Outlook.com, dark mode is supported with the default blue theme. To see emails in a different light, click the Turn off the lights button
How to check your Microsoft 365 Apps version
You might wonder what the semi-annual channel is and which exact version of the Microsoft 365 Apps (Office suite) you have.
There are two kinds of updates – related to performance and security (aka fixes, which are provided when they are needed) and feature-related (aka features).
Microsoft 365 Apps have different update channels available. The frequency of feature-related updates depends on the update channel you have. At the moment of writing this article, there were 3 main channels available. Recently, there has been a change to how those channels are named, and a new channel has been added. Currently, there are 3 main update channels, and one which shouldn’t be used in production environments:
- Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (previously, it was simply called the Semi-Annual Channel) – the default one – has the lowest frequency when it comes to new features added. While it is considered to be the most stable option, you will wait for the newest features longer than in other channels – they are released on the second Tuesday of January and July.
- Monthly Enterprise Channel (as you can expect, previously it was just Monthly Channel) – while security updates and fixes are as frequent as in the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel, new features are deployed once a month (again, on the “Update Tuesday”).
- Current Channel (the newest invention) – it is one step ahead of the Monthly Enterprise Channel. Features are released as soon as they are ready, without a set schedule.
- The Office Insider Channel – or the “lab rat” option – allows you to get early access to features that might still be refined before getting released in the other update channels. It is the best option if you want to get a sneak peek at the features to be released and prepare before deploying them organization-wide. Office Insiders with their thoughts and ideas help shaping the final form of new features.
To check the version of your Office suite (and Outlook in particular), follow those simple steps:
In Outlook, go to the File tab.
On the File tab, go to Office Account. The About Outlook section contains the information you need.
How does the dark mode work?
Like I mentioned before, the dark mode changes the background of any email type (HTML, RTF, or plain text) to its darker version. The background, of course, is not the only element that changes its color. Fonts, separators – all those elements have their colors changed so that the whole email message gets darker (while not affecting readability).
The most obvious, traditional color of an email background is white while font is typically black. The night mode will convert such messages into whiteish text on a blackish background. To be exact, white (#FFF) changes into a very dark gray (#262626) and black (#000) changes into a “dirty” white (#F6F6F6). On the other hand, HTML-designed emails (usually newsletters) are sometimes created with the dark background by default – those emails will get brighter in dark mode.
Perfect email signatures in dark mode
You don’t care about dark mode and don’t want to use it? No problem. Keep in mind, however, that you have no control over your recipients. And since this option changes the background and text color of any message, you might need to take a closer look at your email signature design.
Since emails’ text and background are automatically converted (or inverted, if you like), you don’t have to worry about them that much. The case is different, however, if you look at images – they will stay exactly the same as in the “light mode”. Which might ruin them completely, especially if they have a white non-transparent background.
So, how to make your email signatures dark mode friendly? Here are some guidelines:
- Do not use all-image email signatures. Using email signatures that are just one huge image is never a good idea. Using them in the dark mode is even worse: recipients will immediately see that those signatures are out of place.
- Get rid of white backgrounds. A social icon or logo on a white background is bound to look out of place in dark mode. All graphic elements will probably look better on a transparent background, so they can become a unified part of the design.
- Use images that look well in both modes. It is crucial that your email signatures look well in both modes – the dark and the light. While the traditional, white background will most probably continue to prevail, the dark mode is bound to get some popularity. So, when it comes to social icons, badges, or other graphic email signature elements, it’s a good idea to use colors that will stand out regardless of the recipient’s display mode.
- Test your signatures in dark mode. The most reliable way of finding out if your email signature design gets along with dark mode is to test it. Make sure that all elements look well, and the font colors don’t stray too far from your original design.
- Manage your email signatures. Using email signature management tools is the easiest and the most reliable way to make sure that all users in your organization have well-designed email signatures. You can design and test your layout once and every user will automatically get personalized email signatures.
- Watch out for animated gifs. Although animated gifs usually give a nice touch to an email signature, you need to be extra careful if you want them to look perfect in both dark and standard mode. The safest approach with such animations is to use a neutral solid background, like in this example. White backgrounds, like with images, look out of place and transparent backgrounds won’t give you good results because gifs don’t support semi-transparency, which results in unprofessional, pixelated edges of the animated object.
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I’ve seen the question from Acs (November 14, 2024 at 11:00 am) which was answered wrong by Tomek Stempniewicz.
It is irrelevant if “signatures in emails you send cannot detect the mode in which recipients’ email clients operate”. There are meta tags and @media queries for CSS stylings of light and dark modes. However, Codetwo throws out meta tags and style tags with @media declaration for classes. With this, people would be able to hide one image in either light mode or dark mode and replace it with another.
All of this works for Apple Mail, not in Outlook. However, Microsoft made a special declaration called [data-ogsc] (very human name, thanks Microsoft) in their infinite wisdom and ignored CSS standards ( which the meta information and @media rules come from).
My question is why code two removes my meta and style tags when I write the signature in HTML. It doesn’t really make sense.
Hi Thomas,
Thank you for bringing this up.
Let me clarify. It is indeed possible to detect “light” vs “dark” mode in email clients, but it won’t always work, Outlook being the main culprit. The support for @media queries is still limited. As such, it’s usually more important to have designs that work well for all recipients, than to have sophisticated designs that work only for a few.
Another thing is that when you create HTML code for an email signature, you have access to inline CSS only, it’s different when you create a whole email template from scratch.
Nevertheless, we’re looking into this and would love to easily support more sophisticated email signature designs.
Hi! Is there any way I can insert 2 logos (1 for light mode and 1 for dark mode)?
Hello,
Unfortunately, there isn’t much that can be done in this case – signatures in emails you send cannot detect the mode in which recipients’ email clients operate and switch between different logo versions. The only thing that comes to mind is to have a logo with a transparent background and a font color visible in both light and dark mode (such as gray), but in a lot of cases this means changing the company logo colors.
In my case, it’s applying dark mode to MS Word as well. Something I don’t want at all. Is there a way to apply this solely to Outlook?
Yes, that’s how it works. The dark theme is applied to all Office desktop apps. As a workaround, you can access the same setting in Word (File > Options > General), and in the “Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office” section select the “Never change the document page color” checkbox. The interface in Word will still be black, but the pages will remain white. Hope this helps!
I am currently using Office 365, I have the Office Theme to “Use system setting”. This is set to a dark theme. The issue I’m having is that toggling the Switch Background button doesn’t actually do anything. The email background stays dark.
Sounds like a bug to me. I would try using Help > Contact Support to report it.
Hello. I have been trying to add a logo to a template I’m working on and I keep seeing thumbnails instead. What can I do?
Is this a pre-made template from, for example, https://www.mail-signatures.com/signature-generator ? If you are only adding a logo to an existing template, it will most probably be resized to fit the design. That’s the expected behavior. As long as you remove unnecessary whitespace, this shouldn’t be a problem.
I use Dark mode but have a real hard time with the contrast on the email list. The dark blue title of each email is difficult to read. Please consider using a lighter colour to contrast with the dark theme.
Why isn’t this option available for Outlook Professional Plus 2019?
I am using the Black office theme and have unticked the box next to ‘Never change the message background color’ but it makes no difference whatsoever.
Getting a bit fed up with Microsoft – maybe I’ll head over to Apple next time I need a new computer …
Hi
I want to paste my co logo in the design of my e mail signatures.
How can I do it
It depends on where you have the logo, on its format and on the email client you’re using.
To add a logo to an existing signature, you will have to use the insert image option in the signature’s editor.
If you don’t have an existing signature, the easiest option would be to use the free email signature generator to design a signature with the logo included.
I’d like to point out a typo in the URL and the given information in the article. The URL of the page says dark mode for Outlook OWA. All the screenshots are about the Outlook Client. There is no information about how to enable dark modus in Outlook OWA
How do you enable dark mode for Outlook OWA?
Thanks for the info!
To turn on the dark mode in Outlook on the web, go to Settings (gear icon) > Dark mode. I’ll add this into the article.
It was perfectly explained.
Thank you so much..!!
When I write stuff inside tables, does the font automatically shift from black to white and vice versa depending on the reader’s Outlook mode? Does this work for colors that aren’t full black and full white (like grey)?
Yes, all font and background colors are automatically converted, including grey. There are some colors which will not change drastically (including some shades of grey). The only element which is currently left unchanged is any kind of image.
Why is Office Theme : Black only available in Outlook of Microsoft Suite ( i.e Microsoft Office 365 ) ???
Any idea when will it be extended to MS Office 16 (32 bit version) ?
Unfortunately, I haven’t heard of any plans for deploying this feature to Microsoft Office 2016, or even 2019.
I’m very happy to see my gmail signature
Any idea when the dark reading pane will come to the semi-annual update channel?
It’s hard to say for sure, but the next feature update for the semi-annual channel (now called Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel) is scheduled for July 14, 2020, so it could be coming to this channel in less than a month.
Hi Kamil, I inserted the created signature into ios according to the instructions. Unfortunately, all test mails with a white background have been received since then, despite dark mode on the iPhone.
What’s the mistake?
BR Phil
Hi Phil,
As far as I know, dark mode on iPhone doesn’t include changing colors in email backgrounds – it’s not the same as the dark mode in Outlook.
mine can’t pick the logo..help
Hi Davis,
I’m not sure I understand. What can’t pick the logo? In the dark mode, graphics are not converted, so it is crucial to make use of transparency and the right colors.
Hi Kamil, I have a Office 2013 Pro Plus version and the dark grey is not dark enough. I had black in previous company and it was really black, for my eyes it was awasome. Can I change it anyhow without changing company settings?
Hi Anna,
Unfortunately, Outlook 2013 doesn’t have the Black theme option. The only way to get it is to upgrade to Office ProPlus (as a part of Office 365 subscription), where you can also change the background of emails from white to dark. Outlook 2019 also has the black theme option, but it still lacks the dark mode.
If there are any add-ins that allow changing theme to a darker one in Outlook 2013, I’m not familiar with them.
Mr. Glaser – I am finding that my version does not have the sun and moon to make the reading pane black. Version 1908 (Build 11929.20648 Click-to-Run)
Any idea as to what I may be missing?
Thank you in advance for any reaponse.
Hi Joshua,
The Build version you have specified suggests that you are on the Semi-Annual update channel. Dark mode hasn’t been released for Outlook with this update channel selected. If you want to change the update channel to experience this feature, follow this article (if changing the version is not against your company policy), or contact your Office 365 admin.
I cannot find a page that gives these same type of wonderful answers/directions but for Office Home and Business 2019. The options you show just are not there for me. ::-( I wish they were because you do such easy to understand tutorials! Thanks anyway.
Hi Donna,
Glad you like our tutorials! Unfortunately, the dark mode seems to be available only in Office 365 ProPlus at the moment.