Dark mode is a setting available on most devices which sets the visual interface to be dark rather than light. Most apps on the device will adapt to this setting and implement their own dark interface, and many offer their own control to toggle dark mode on or off independently of any device settings.

Dark mode has different implications for emails and landing pages, and we’ll dive into both in this help doc. Click here to watch our demo.

People use dark mode for many reasons, and on many devices it automatically turns on at night. Some of the benefits of dark mode are:

Many popular email clients have some kind of dark mode that either responds to device settings or can be enabled independently.

As well as darkening the visual interface, most major email clients also take the unusual step of forcefully darken or invert the colors in your emails.

They will generally adjust email background, border & text colors. The affected colors will be inverted from light to dark but also, surprisingly, from dark to light in some cases. Image and logo colors are not affected.

The way that dark mode affects your emails will vary between email clients. At the moment Gmail and Outlook on Windows have the most invasive color changes when dark mode is used.

Below is a table of all the major email clients that have a dark mode, and how they modify your email in dark mode.

This depends on the email client.

Email clients can be split into two categories: those that allow you to control your email’s design in dark mode (using CSS) and those that don’t.

For those that do, Knak has dark mode editing which allows you to customize the images and colors that you want to display when the email is viewed in dark mode in compatible email clients.

Find out more about dark mode editing here →

Below is a table of all the major email clients with dark mode capabilities and whether they support dark mode editing:

For email clients that don’t support dark mode editing, Knak offers a range of best practice recommendations and optimizations as you build, to ensure your emails look their best.

Color Choices for Dark Mode

Borders and Dark Mode

Getting your Images Ready for Dark Mode

Using Text over Background Images

Using Borders on Buttons in Dark Mode

Color Contrast for Dark Mode

As Landing Pages are always viewed in a browser, the situation is much simpler because browsers do not make any automatic changes to your landing page’s appearance when dark mode is enabled on your device or operating system. And best of all, all the major browsers support dark mode editing.

Find out more about dark mode editing here →

​Need more help? Contact support via live chat within Knak using the chat bubble in the bottom right corner or email support@knak.com