When viewing incoming emails that have a dark (black in this example) background the black background is not displayed, this making the white text invisible on the white background.
Example … emails sent from the BBC re iPlayer content. These work normally in other email browsers (same account).
The text can be seen if you swap to ‘dark mode’ or highlight the text.
version 1.17.4-92e9fe28
Ubuntu v.25.10
GNOME version 49
Wayland
This is a known rendering issue. When an email uses a dark background with light text (as BBC iPlayer emails do), Mailspring can sometimes strip the background color while keeping the light text color, making content invisible in light mode. The workaround you found is correct — switching to Mailspring’s dark theme makes these emails readable. We’re tracking this as a display bug; it’s related to how the email viewer handles CSS backgrounds on certain HTML structures. Thanks for the detailed report including the specific sender.
