How to fix dark mode issues
Step 1: Understand how dark mode impacts your emails
Dark mode doesn’t just change background colors. It can completely alter how your email renders across email clients. Additionally, different email clients render dark mode differently. Some email clients invert colors automatically, while others partially adjust them or leave them unchanged.
Here are the three common ways email clients handle dark mode:
- Full color inversion: all colors are inverted (white becomes black, and vice versa).
- Partial inversion: only light backgrounds and dark text are inverted.
- No change: the email looks the same in both modes.
Because every client like Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail behave differently, it often causes issues like:
- Logos or icons disappearing on dark backgrounds
- Background colors appearing uneven or distorted
- Text losing contrast or readability
- Images having weird color inversions
- Layout appearing broken
The tool displays your email in dark mode. Here, you can check for issues.
You can check how your email will be rendered in dark mode using a tool like Mailmodo's Dark Mode Previewer. All you need to do is send the email template to the email shown by the tool. This will allow you to identify the main issues that you need to work on solving.
Step 2: Fix the dark mode rendering issues
Once you've identified the problems or issues with the rendering of your emails in the dark mode, you can move on to resolving them one by one. Here are a few commmon fixes that you can do to avoid the errors or fix them if they already exist.
1. Use dark mode safe brand assets
If your logo or other images in the email have dark elements (like black text) and a transparent background, it can vanish against dark mode’s dark background. Additionally, it's very common to have images or logos inverted in a way that makes them unrecognizable.
You can fix this issue by using a version of your logo and images that have a white outline or a subtle stroke around them like this.
<img src="logo.png" style="background-color:#ffffff; padding:10px; border-radius:4px;">
2. Define email background and text colors
Many clients invert colors when no color is explicitly defined for the background and the text. This can make the text in the email very difficult to read if the contrast isn't right. So, don't leave backgrounds transparent and set a solid background color for every section or container and the text.
<body style="background-color:#f5f5f5;">
<table style="background-color:#ffffff;">
<td style="color:#333333; background-color:#ffffff;">
Some email clients support prefers-color-scheme media query that automatically apply dark mode styles. Use it to control color inversion behavior instead of relying on client-side inversion.
<style>
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
.dark-mode {
background-color: #121212 !important;
color: #ffffff !important;
}
}
</style>
4. Add fallbacks for clients without dark mode support
Not all clients support dark mode (or media queries). So, you must always design for both light and dark environments. You can do this by:
- Using default colors with minimalistic layouts that look good in both themes.
- Favouring high contrast between background and text.
- Including a neutral fallback background color like
#f5f5f5.
- Limiting color combinations that will clash when inverted.
This ensures your emails remain legible and attractive — even where dark mode isn’t supported.
Step 3: Test across clients and devices
You already know that every email client handles dark mode differently. So, it's important for you to always preview and test your design before sending.
Check how your email looks in:
- Gmail (web and mobile)
- Outlook (desktop and web)
- Apple Mail
- Yahoo Mail
You would also want to check out other email clients that your subscribers or customers may be using.
You can use an ESP like Mailmodo to do this. The test send feature allows you to see exactly how your email renders in light and dark themes across multiple clients and devices, helping you spot inconsistencies early.
But that's not all that Mailmodo does. In addition to allowing you to test your emails before you send, it even allows you to fix other email rendering issues, using its drag-and-drop email builder.
How to fix dark mode email rendering issues with Mailmodo
With Mailmodo's no-code drag-and-drop email buider, you don't have the need to spend your time and effort in finding the parts of the HTML or CSS code that have issues and fixing them. You can do it in a much more intuitive way.
Take a look at how you can fix some common dark mode email rendering issues using Mailmodo.
Logos disappearing in dark mode
- Open your email template in the email template builder
- Click the logo image
- Add a border for the logo and define the color and thickness of the border
- Click on the header block or card and choose a background color for the block
2. Small images inverted in Gmail
On Gmail, particularly the Android app, small images (usually under 100 pixels wide or tall) may have their colors inverted in dark mode. This can make icons or logos appear distorted or even unrecognizable.
Here’s what you can do to prevent that:
- Choose the image in the editor
- Increase the actual dimensions of your image using the image size slider (for example, from 60×60 px to 120×120 px) to help prevent inversion
- Add a thin white or light-colored border or background around the image to stop Gmail from changing its appearance in dark mode
3. Unreadable text
In dark mode, some email clients invert background and text colors automatically. If your email uses default or inherited styles, this can create low contrast and poor readability.
Here is how to fix it in Mailmodo:
Use the Text block to insert text
Manually set the text color using the text formatting options
Set the background color of the block to ensure a strong contrast
Final thoughts
Dark mode rendering issues pose a real risk for email engagement and brand perception. Without careful testing and adjustments, emails can display broken logos, inverted images, or unreadable text, undermining even the most carefully crafted campaigns.
Using Mailmodo’s visual editor and dark mode preview tools turns guesswork into control. By identifying issues early and applying the right fixes — from adjusting image size and contrast to setting text and background colors — you ensure your emails look great in every inbox. Start creating emails that render perfectly in dark mode with Mailmodo today.
