Need help with HTML email formatting issue on Android Gmail app
I’m having trouble with HTML email text colors when users view them in Gmail’s dark mode on Android devices. The colors get messed up and don’t display properly.
I tried using linear gradient with background-clip properties which works great on iPhone Gmail app, but Android Gmail handles it completely different. The text becomes unreadable or changes to wrong colors.
Has anyone found a reliable way to make HTML email text colors stay consistent in Android Gmail dark mode? I need the emails to look good regardless of the user’s theme settings.
Thanks for any suggestions or workarounds you might have!
Hit this exact issue last year building email templates for marketing campaigns. Android Gmail’s dark mode is way more aggressive than iOS - it’ll override your CSS styles without mercy. Here’s what actually worked for me: media queries targeting dark mode preferences plus inline styles with higher specificity to force text colors. I ditched gradients completely for Android and went with solid color fallbacks instead. Also set the color-scheme meta tag to light only - this stops Gmail from auto-applying dark mode transformations to your content. Try !important declarations on critical text colors too, though it’s hit or miss depending on Gmail’s latest rendering updates. Bottom line: you’ll need separate styling for different platforms. There’s no magic universal fix.
Android Gmail is brutal for this. I switched to dark background divs with light text instead of fighting the auto color changes. Try the [data-ogsc] selector too - it targets Gmail’s dark mode directly. Way easier than media queries that Gmail ignores anyway.
I’ve been fighting this for months across multiple client projects. The problem is Android Gmail treats HTML emails like web pages when it applies dark mode, while iOS keeps them separate. Here’s what actually works: use the prefers-color-scheme media query with explicit background colors on text containers. Don’t just rely on text color - wrap important text in spans with both background-color and color properties set inline. This gives enough contrast that Gmail’s algorithms usually leave it alone. Also try slightly off-white colors like #fefefe instead of pure white - Gmail seems less likely to mess with these. That gradient approach won’t work consistently because Android Gmail strips or changes complex CSS properties. Test on actual devices, not browser previews - the rendering differences are huge.