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DocsEmail appearance & dark mode
Choose how message bodies are themed (Auto or Light), plus the per-email toggle and the honest limits.
When you put the app into dark mode, the inbox chrome — the list, the toolbar, and the CRM panel — goes dark. The message body is a separate question. Many marketing emails are designed against a white background with hardcoded colors, so forcing them dark can wash out logos and collapse button fills. The Email appearance setting lets you decide how your message bodies are themed, and a per-email toggle lets you flip any single message the other way.
One per-user preference with two options, set once and synced across devices.
Open the gear in the inbox toolbar and choose Email settings (or go to Settings > My preferences > Email inbox), then look under Reading & display for the Email appearance picker. Your choice is saved per user and applies on every device you use.
| Field | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Auto | Plain replies follow your app theme: they take a dark background while the app is in dark mode. Designed messages, such as newsletters and other rich formatted email, keep their own light background so they stay readable, because their hardcoded colors cannot be inverted safely. | Default |
| Light | Every message renders on a light background, whatever the app theme is. Pick this if you prefer reading email on white and never want a dark message body. | — |
A one-click override on the email you are reading, without changing your default.
Every HTML email you open has a light/dark toggle in the reading-pane toolbar. The button shows a moon icon (Use dark background) when the body is light, and a sun icon (Use light background) when the body is dark. Click it to re-theme the message in place — no reload, no flash. On a phone or tablet reading a message full-screen, the same command sits in the More actions menu instead of the toolbar. The override applies only to the email you are reading and does not change your saved Email appearance default.
This is the one-click escape hatch, and it works in both directions under either setting: put a designed newsletter on a dark background if you want it there, or put a plain reply back on white. It works while the app is in light mode too. The next message you open is back to your default.
A dark body re-themes the parts of a message we can read as text — body copy, headings, links, and quoted replies. It cannot recolor pixels inside an image. Some newsletters are built almost entirely as images, with the headline and call-to-action baked into a picture, and a dark background leaves those image blocks sitting on it as bright rectangles, with image-based buttons that look like they float in empty space. That is why designed mail keeps its light background under Auto as well as under Light. You can still take one of those messages dark yourself with the per-email button, and the bright rectangles are what you get when you do.