Dark mode has been available for Outlook users for some time now. This mode changes the email background to a deep dark gray, which most people would call “almost black”. Why is it worth mentioning? Judging from the discussion under the Changing background colors in Outlook article, many people are desperate for this feature. That’s why we wanted to share which versions of Outlook have dark mode available, how it works, and what to keep in mind when using it.
But first, let’s see why this feature is a real game changer (at least for some people).
Dark mode might be more than you think
Dark mode, or the “Switch Background” option, does more than simply change the frame around emails. That’s what the black or dark theme did in the past, leaving the actual email body unchanged (usually, the background stayed white, which strained your eyes a lot). With dark mode, 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 an 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…
If those arguments don’t convince you, you still should know a bit about how it works. Think about all those recipients that might have dark mode enabled. Don’t you like your emails to look great in all modes, for all recipients?
How does dark mode work?
Dark mode changes the background of any email type (HTML, RTF, or plain text) to a darker version. But the background is not the only element that changes. 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 the email background is white, while font is typically black. Dark mode converts your 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).
In most cases, these shifts away from pure white and black are barely noticeable – but if your HTML-designed emails (such as newsletters) are created with the dark background by default, they may actually appear brighter in dark mode.
How to turn on dark mode in Outlook
Classic Outlook for Windows
To enable dark mode in classic Outlook for Windows, you need to have the Black Office theme turned on. Other themes will not allow you to change the email background.
- To turn on the Black Office theme, go to File > Options > General > Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office and choose Black as your Office Theme:
- If you have dark mode enabled in your system settings, you can also choose the Use system setting option here.
- The checkbox Never change the message background color, located next to the Office Theme field, always displays emails with the white background, even if the rest of Outlook is shown in dark mode. If you don’t select this checkbox, you can still switch to the white background when reading an email or composing a new one. This way, you can view emails that aren’t optimized for dark mode and steer clear of the same issues in your own emails.
- To switch between the dark and light background while dark mode is turned on, you can either use the button next to the Reply option when reading an email:
- or the Switch Background option on the Message tab when composing an email:
New Outlook for Windows and OWA
New Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web (OWA) have the dark mode-related settings in the same location:
- Go to Settings > General > Appearance (here is a direct link to these settings in OWA). Click Dark to turn on dark mode.
- Use system settings will also turn on dark mode if you have dark mode enabled in your system settings.
- To see emails in a different light without disabling the dark mode for the rest of Outlook, click the View with a light/dark background button when reading an email:
- or the Toggle light/dark background on the Message tab when writing an email:
Outlook for Mac
- To enable dark mode in Outlook for Mac, first open Outlook. Then, go to Outlook > Settings.
- In the Appearance section, click Dark to turn on dark mode. The System option inherits display mode from your system settings. So, if you have your Mac set to dark, and choose System, Outlook will automatically become the darker version of itself, too.
- Then, if the dark mode is turned on, you can use the Switch Background option to change the email body’s background. The option is around the email’s top-right corner, no matter if you compose or read the message.
Outlook for Android and Outlook for iOS
Outlook for Android and Outlook for iOS have dark mode settings in the same place:
- To turn on dark mode in a mobile Outlook, go to app settings by clicking your user photo (or initials if no photo is set up):
- Then, click the cogwheel in the bottom left corner.
- Select Display & Appearance:
- Finally, click Dark to turn on dark mode. Or use the system settings if your mobile device already uses the dark theme.
How to turn off dark mode in Outlook
To turn off dark mode in Outlook follow the same steps as for turning it on. Just choose another option in the last step.
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 dark mode automatically converts (or inverts, if you like) your emails’ text and background, 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 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 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, 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 light 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.
Which Outlook versions support dark mode
Dark mode, night mode, or the Switch Background option is currently available in any up-to-date version of Outlook except standalone Outlook (for example, the version included in the Office 2019 suite). In other words, to experience the feature you need to use one of these Outlook versions:
- New Outlook for Windows
- Outlook for Microsoft 365 (Outlook delivered as a part of your Microsoft 365 subscription)
- Outlook on the web
- Outlook.com
- Mobile Outlook
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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.