Note: This article was originally published in 2016. Some steps, commands, or software versions may have changed. Check the current .Net documentation for the latest information.

.Net: Supported Console Colors

The days of writing applications that write to the console seem to be over for a while now. Notwithstanding, we find ourselves using the console from time to time to help us debug or quickly test application logic. In my case, I am currently using the console to monitor logging information from my application. It is terribly useful to be able to see progress as it happens. It sort of reminds me of using tail -f in Ubuntu against a log file. As part of my effort to make this log reading more easy I decided I wanted to color code the messages based on what they were: Errors / Warnings / Info / Debug, etc. I kept asking myself if Windows is able to support colored console as Ubuntu does, and I am happy to report it does! So here is when the question arises:

What colors are supported and how to use them?

Thankfully there is an enumeration to help us answer this question:

ConsoleColor

| Member name | Description
---|---|---
| Black | The color black.
| Blue | The color blue.
| Cyan | The color cyan (blue-green).
| DarkBlue | The color dark blue.
| DarkCyan | The color dark cyan (dark blue-green).
| DarkGray | The color dark gray.
| DarkGreen | The color dark green.
| DarkMagenta | The color dark magenta (dark purplish-red).
| DarkRed | The color dark red.
| DarkYellow | The color dark yellow (ochre).
| Gray | The color gray.
| Green | The color green.
| Magenta | The color magenta (purplish-red).
| Red | The color red.
| White | The color white.
| Yellow | The color yellow.