Microsoft’s Outlook.com Dark Mode Is Now Live

Microsoft is introducing a dark mode for the company's Outlook.com webmail service today. The creator of the software previously joked with the dark mode earlier this month, and previously introduced a temporary version for Halloween last year. This new permanent dark mode can be enabled from the quick setting to toggle, and only currently works with the default blue theme. It is much more refined than Halloween mode, with more gray than black.

"One of the most crucial principles we had when designing the dark mode was to minimize the amount of eye fatigue that people felt," explains Microsoft. "Many email clients on the web today announce a dark mode, but from interviews with others and our own use we learned that having the reading panel illuminated while the rest of the interface was left in the dark often made the experience worse if the full screen is left on ".

The dark mode for Outlook.com is one of the most requested features for Microsoft's webmail service, and the company says it tweeted the Halloween prototype to redesign the colors and code "several times" before releasing it today. Microsoft has even included a toggle within the body of emails so you can disable dark mode if a message is difficult to read.

Microsoft has not implemented the new dark mode as a theme, and the company says it imagines "that there will be a dark experience for all the themes available in the future." Outlook.com is now used by more than 400 million active users, and Microsoft recently released a new design and features for the calendar and contact sections. This new design comes out today of the beta phase, along with the addition of dark mode.