Office 365 Tutorials

If you are like me and like to work on a mobile device at night, or, just work with the lights off, then dark mode is for you. I find a dark theme helps with eye strain. In addition, many sources also report that a dark color scheme helps conserve battery power on mobile devices.

The mobile client of Outlook has such a mode.

Let’s get started!

Enabling Dark Theme in Outlook Mobile

To enable dark theme in Outlook Mobile, click the Menu button in the top-left and then Settings (represented by a gear icon).

From the Settings page scroll down to the Preferences section. Click Theme. From the Theme pop-up select Dark.

Note: The Set by Battery Saver mode adjusts between the light and dark themes based on your device’s battery conservation settings. Microsoft states switching to dark mode consumes less device power.

The Preferences section now identifies your theme as Dark. To change to another theme, click Theme again and make a new selection. To revert to the default theme click Light.

Once satisfied, click the back arrow in the top left of the screen. Your inbox will now reflect your current theme. In our screenshot below, our inbox has updated to the dark theme.

The black theme has been around in Outlook for Windows for some time. However, unlike Outlook Web App, or, Microsoft Teams, the black theme was not a true dark mode. Some aspects of the black theme were still fully illuminated, such as when you read or composed a message.

The screenshot below is an example of how the black theme changes certain aspects such as the folder view and toolbars to black but leaves the email preview pane in white.

Similarly, when you compose an email the message body is also in white.

The new Black Theme for Outlook

Starting with version 1907 for Office Insiders, the Outlook team has extended the black theme so it now incorporates the message body and the composition panes.

Note: Anyone can enroll in the Office Insider program. However, Office Insiders receive weekly updates, which could be subject to bugs.

UPDATE 10-5-19: For those on the Monthly Channel, you can get dark mode with the 1909 monthly channel update (released September 30th).

With version 1907 the message preview pane defaults to black.

Similarly, when you compose an email the message body is now black.

One of the great plugins for Outlook is FindTime. FindTime makes scheduling meetings easy by allowing organizers to poll attendees for their preferred date and time to meet. But FindTime is more than just a simple polling app, it integrates fully into your calendar. FindTime recommends meeting times, can place tentative placeholders on your calendar for each proposed time, and can automatically schedule the meeting if a consensus is met. Gone are the days of emails flying back and forth to find a time that works for everyone.

Note: There is one stipulation. The meeting organizer does require an active subscription to Office 365. The attendees do not. Attendees can be on any other email system.

Installing FindTime

To install FindTime, navigate to findtime.microsoft.com (alternatively, you can install FindTime from the Office 365 App Store – to do this, log into Office 365 and select Add-Ins). 

From the website click Install For Free (Requires Office 365).

Select whether to receive FindTime announcements, updates, and information. Click I’m Ready.

One of the newest features announced at Ignite was the ability to enable dark mode in Outlook on the Web. It is worth noting that this feature is only available in Office 365. There are no plans to bring it to Exchange 2019 at this time.

I have always been a big fan of dark mode for any application as I spend more hours than I care to admit at my computer, so eye strain is always a concern.

Dark mode lets us protect our eyeballs from the harsh glare of a white screen, and it may just conserve a little more battery life on our mobile devices.

Note: These instructions will also work with Outlook.com

Enabling dark mode

To enable the dark theme, log onto Outlook on the Web and click the toggle next to Try the new Outlook so it moves to the right (on).