Windows Powershell is Unreadable in High-Contrast Light Modes (And Any Other Modes)

Windows Terminal version

1.22.12111.0

Windows build number

26100.6584

Other Software

No response

Steps to reproduce

Set Windows to a light high-contrast theme. (I can't read dark mode, or faint text in light mode; unfortunately Windows lacks really high-contrast themes.)
Open Powershell.
Set any of the light color themes.
Try to use Powershell.

Expected Behavior

In light mode, all colors should be dark, and when using high-contrast themes, black.

In dark mode, all colors should be light.

Actual Behavior

In light mode, most text is white or another light color indistinguishable from it.

Windows Terminal Light/High-Contrast Text Visibility

Windows Terminal version: 1.22.12111.0
Windows build number: 26100.6584
Other Software: N/A

Problem

Using Windows Terminal with PowerShell in a light Windows theme or high-contrast mode can make text unreadable.
Most default color schemes are designed for dark backgrounds, so light text may blend with light backgrounds, making PowerShell difficult or impossible to read.

Steps to Reproduce

Set Windows to a light high-contrast theme.

Note: Dark mode or faint text in light mode is unreadable; Windows lacks truly high-contrast themes.
Open PowerShell in Windows Terminal.
Set any of the light color themes.
Try to use PowerShell.

Expected Behavior

In light mode, all text should be dark (e.g., black).
In dark mode, all text should be light (e.g., white).
High-contrast themes should respect visibility rules.

Actual Behavior

In light mode, most text appears white or very light, making it indistinguishable from the background.
This makes PowerShell unusable in light/high-contrast modes.

Suggested Solutions

1. Use a Light-Friendly Predefined Color Scheme

Go to Settings → Color schemes.
Select a light scheme such as:
- Campbell
- Tango Light
- One Half Light
Apply it to your PowerShell profile.

2. Create a Custom Light/High-Contrast Color Scheme

Set background: #FFFFFF
Set foreground: #000000
Adjust ANSI colors to dark shades for readability.

Example JSON scheme:

{
    "name": "HighContrastLight",
    "background": "#FFFFFF",
    "foreground": "#000000",
    "black": "#000000",
    "red": "#800000",
    "green": "#008000",
    "yellow": "#808000",
    "blue": "#000080",
    "purple": "#800080",
    "cyan": "#008080",
    "white": "#C0C0C0",
    "brightBlack": "#808080",
    "brightRed": "#FF0000",
    "brightGreen": "#00FF00",
    "brightYellow": "#FFFF00",
    "brightBlue": "#0000FF",
    "brightPurple": "#FF00FF",
    "brightCyan": "#00FFFF",
    "brightWhite": "#FFFFFF"
}

3. Handle Windows High Contrast Mode

High-contrast themes may override terminal colors.

Options:

Temporarily disable Windows High Contrast while using Terminal.
Or match your terminal color scheme with high-contrast colors.

4. Enable Legacy Console Colors

Open Settings → Profiles → PowerShell → Appearance.
Enable “Use legacy console colors”.
This can improve visibility in high-contrast setups.

Recommended Approach

Use a custom light/high-contrast color scheme to ensure all text is clearly readable in any Windows theme.
This guarantees full accessibility for users who rely on high-contrast settings or cannot read faint/dark text.

Can you please post a screenshot of the issue?

The 1st part is yellow and almost unreadable, the last white and completely unreadable.

For what it is worth, these colors are chosen directly by PowerShell and we have limited control over them.

High contrast mode automatically enables¹ "adjust indistinguishable colors", which mitigates this effect completely by darkening the yellow and the white.

can you see whether you have that setting disabled in the Appearance section of your PowerShell profile settings?

unless you have disabled this feature. ↩

It was disabled by default. I enabled it. I get:

It doesn't seem to affect white-on-white text.

Interesting. Can you share your settings.json after that? Sorry!

{
    "$help": "https://aka.ms/terminal-documentation",
    "$schema": "https://aka.ms/terminal-profiles-schema",
    "actions": [],
    "copyFormatting": "none",
    "copyOnSelect": false,
    "defaultProfile": "{574e775e-4f2a-5b96-ac1e-a2962a402336}",
    "disableAnimations": true,
    "keybindings": 
    [
        {
            "id": "Terminal.CopyToClipboard",
            "keys": "ctrl+c"
        },
        {
            "id": "Terminal.PasteFromClipboard",
            "keys": "ctrl+v"
        },
        {
            "id": "Terminal.DuplicatePaneAuto",
            "keys": "alt+shift+d"
        }
    ],
    "newTabMenu": 
    [
        {
            "type": "remainingProfiles"
        }
    ],
    "profiles": 
    {
        "defaults": 
        {
            "adjustIndistinguishableColors": "always",
            "colorScheme": "One Half Light"
        },
        "list": 
        [
            {
                "commandline": "%SystemRoot%\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe",
                "guid": "{61c54bbd-c2c6-5271-96e7-009a87ff44bf}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Windows PowerShell"
            },
            {
                "commandline": "%SystemRoot%\\System32\\cmd.exe",
                "guid": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Command Prompt"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{574e775e-4f2a-5b96-ac1e-a2962a402336}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "PowerShell",
                "source": "Windows.Terminal.PowershellCore"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{b453ae62-4e3d-5e58-b989-0a998ec441b8}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Azure Cloud Shell",
                "source": "Windows.Terminal.Azure"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{51855cb2-8cce-5362-8f54-464b92b32386}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Ubuntu",
                "source": "CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu_79rhkp1fndgsc"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{e7ed9e10-6f40-54fe-8f56-127f7e23a1ac}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Ubuntu",
                "source": "Microsoft.WSL"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{2c4de342-38b7-51cf-b940-2309a097f518}",
                "hidden": true,
                "name": "Ubuntu",
                "source": "Windows.Terminal.Wsl"
            }
        ]
    },
    "schemes": [],
    "theme": "system",
    "themes": []
}

I'm seeing the same issue. I followed https://superuser.com/a/1861874/618270 to make colorScheme follow the Windows system theme light / dark mode (and not just the Terminal application theme). However, my first test of this revealed the Powershell issue. I then set Automatically adjust lightness of indistinguishable text = Always to attempt rectify that, but see no change.

Here is an excerpt from my settings.json after manual edits to add dark/light mode switching, and then after automatic edit to automatically distinguish colors.

        "defaults": 
        {
            "adjustIndistinguishableColors": "always",
            "colorScheme": 
            {
                "dark": "One Half Dark",
                "light": "One Half Light"
            }
        },

Alright, I took a closer look at this. Here's what I found:

PowerShell uses its own colors (as mentioned earlier in the thread). Looks like you can check them using Get-PSReadLineOption, which shows that "$([char]0x1b)[37m" is used. That evaluates to using the white color in the Terminal's color scheme.
One Half Light is defined in the defaults.json here
I opened two instances of Windows PowerShell using One Half Light: one with "adjust indistinguishable colors" set to always and another disabled. Here's the results:

`adjustIndistinguishableColors` enabled

`adjustIndistinguishableColors` disabled

At the end of the day, adjustIndistinguishableColors should result in the text being legible. It's surprising to see that it ended up doing the opposite! I think the move here is to fix that since updating PSReadLine's colors is out of our purview and color schemes in general can result in low contrast text. The adjustIndistinguishableColors setting should fix it and make all text legible.

Pretty sure this has been discussed previously in #15452 most specifically.

Also relevant to #12999

Specifically this comment and beyond: #15452 (comment)

I'm gonna close this one out as a duplicate of 15452 and move that one into the "frontlog"

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Windows Powershell is Unreadable in High-Contrast Light Modes (And Any Other Modes) #19433

Windows Terminal version

Windows build number

Other Software

Steps to reproduce

Expected Behavior

Actual Behavior

Windows Terminal Light/High-Contrast Text Visibility

Problem

Steps to Reproduce

Expected Behavior

Actual Behavior

Suggested Solutions

1. Use a Light-Friendly Predefined Color Scheme

2. Create a Custom Light/High-Contrast Color Scheme

3. Handle Windows High Contrast Mode

4. Enable Legacy Console Colors

Recommended Approach

`adjustIndistinguishableColors` enabled

`adjustIndistinguishableColors` disabled

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Windows Powershell is Unreadable in High-Contrast Light Modes (And Any Other Modes) #19433

Description

Windows Terminal version

Windows build number

Other Software

Steps to reproduce

Expected Behavior

Actual Behavior

Activity

kesharwaniayush commented on Oct 11, 2025

Windows Terminal Light/High-Contrast Text Visibility

Problem

Steps to Reproduce

Expected Behavior

Actual Behavior

Suggested Solutions

1. Use a Light-Friendly Predefined Color Scheme

2. Create a Custom Light/High-Contrast Color Scheme

3. Handle Windows High Contrast Mode

4. Enable Legacy Console Colors

Recommended Approach

lhecker commented on Oct 13, 2025

MarjaE2 commented on Oct 13, 2025

DHowett commented on Oct 13, 2025

Footnotes

MarjaE2 commented on Oct 13, 2025

DHowett commented on Oct 13, 2025

MarjaE2 commented on Oct 13, 2025

ukanuk commented on Oct 19, 2025

carlos-zamora commented on Oct 22, 2025

adjustIndistinguishableColors enabled

adjustIndistinguishableColors disabled

zadjii-msft commented on Oct 29, 2025

DHowett commented on Oct 29, 2025

DHowett commented on Oct 29, 2025

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Metadata

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Issue actions

`adjustIndistinguishableColors` enabled

`adjustIndistinguishableColors` disabled