The webmail for cPanel hosting plans is Roundcube. A common question is whether its appearance (template or ‘skin’) can be changed, and what aspects of it can be customised.

Can the theme be changed?

No: there is currently no supported way to change the Roundcube template.

Prior to cPanel version 120, Roundcube used the Larry theme. The Roundcube developers have declared this theme obsolete and no longer support it; therefore, from cPanel version 120 onwards, Roundcube uses the Elastic theme. Elastic is a modern, responsive theme: the same interface works on computers, tablets and mobile phones.

What can you customise?

Instead of the theme, you can customise a number of settings to suit your own preferences. In Roundcube, click on the Settings icon in the left-hand menu, then select Preferences:

• Dark mode: the Elastic theme can also be used with a dark colour scheme. You can switch it on and off in the menu in the bottom-left corner.
• User interface: here you can set the language, time zone and date and time formats.
• Mailbox view: settings for the mail list, such as ‘Expand threads’ (whether conversations should be displayed expanded) and ‘Number of lines per page’.
• Displaying messages: you can control the formatted display of HTML emails using the ‘HTML display’ toggle, and control the loading of external images using the ‘Allow external resources (images, styles)’ setting (never, from my partners, from trusted senders or always). For security reasons, we recommend that you only load external images from known senders.
• Writing messages: using the** ‘Write HTML message’** setting, you can choose whether to write new messages in HTML or plain text format.

You can enter your signature on the Settings > Identifiers page; this is covered in detail in the article on setting up automatic email signatures.

If the interface is displayed incorrectly

If, following an update, the webmail interface appears misaligned, with missing icons or a blank screen, this is usually caused by old files stored in your browser’s cache:

1. Refresh the page to bypass the cache (Ctrl + F5 on Windows, Cmd + Shift + R on macOS).
2. If this does not help, clear the cookies and cache associated with your webmail address in your browser, then log in again.
3. Try it in a private (incognito) window, without any extensions: if it works fine there, a browser extension (such as an ad blocker) is causing the error.

If the text is too small or too large, reset your browser’s zoom level (Ctrl + or -) to 100%; the Elastic theme automatically switches to mobile layout in smaller windows.

If you would like to use a different interface

If you do not find the webmail interface suitable, you can access your mailbox using any email client via IMAP; in this case, your emails will still remain on the server and will also be accessible via webmail. Our guides:

• Setting up Thunderbird for IMAP
• Setting up IMAP in Outlook
• Setting up email on iPhone and Android

The article on choosing an email client will help you decide which program is right for you.