Windows 10 Tip: Remove the Mail App’s Background

If you’ve spent time looking over the bundled apps in Windows 10, you have probably noticed that Mail, unique among all of these apps, provides a background image option. Changing the image is easy. But what if you want to remove the background image?

Note: this tip also appears in Windows 10 Field Guide, which is coming soon. –Paul

It’s not clear why Mail, alone among the bundled apps in Windows 10, provides a background image option, nor is it any clearer why anyone would want to see a photo of clouds inside an email app. But that’s how Mail is configured by default.

Changing the background image is simple enough: in Mail, navigate to Settings, Background Picture and select any picture from your PC.

But, again? Why?

What Mail doesn’t provide is a way to configure no background image. But you can fake it. Here’s how.

Launch the Paint application, resize the default image to 1 pixel by 1 pixel (typing CTRL + E to access the Image Properties window) and then save that image to your Pictures folder (as white.png or whatever). Then, using the Background Picture settings interface noted above, choose that image as your background image.

Voila! Normalcy returns.