Our Web Safe Color Picker provides an interactive palette of the 216 colors that were historically guaranteed to display consistently across all 8-bit computer monitors. This tool allows you to easily select a web-safe color, instantly get its HEX and RGB codes, and ensure maximum compatibility for projects like HTML emails or designs for low-spec displays.
Interactive Web Safe Color Palette
What Are Web Safe Colors?
Web safe colors refer to a specific palette of 216 colors that were defined in the early days of the internet to ensure that web pages looked the same on all computer systems. In the 1990s, most computers could only display a maximum of 256 colors at a time. The problem was that different operating systems (like Windows and Mac OS) reserved a different set of colors for their own interface, leaving an even smaller, inconsistent number of colors for web browsers.
To solve this, browser developers identified a common set of 216 colors that both major operating systems used. By designing with this “web safe palette,” developers could be confident that their chosen colors would not be dithered—approximated by mixing nearby colored pixels, which often looked speckled and unprofessional. These colors are defined by HEX values where the Red, Green, and Blue components are only one of six values: 00, 33, 66, 99, CC, or FF. For example, #FF6600 (a bright orange) is web-safe because all its components (FF, 66, 00) are in the set.
While modern displays can render millions of colors (sRGB), making the original need for web-safe colors largely obsolete, the palette still holds relevance in specific use cases such as designing HTML emails for older clients or ensuring color consistency on low-specification devices and monitors.
Why Use a Web Safe Palette?
Maximum Compatibility
Ensure your colors display correctly and without dithering on older monitors, limited-capability devices, and within restrictive HTML email clients like Outlook.
Design Consistency
Working within the constraints of a defined palette can lead to more cohesive and harmonious designs. It simplifies color decisions and fosters a consistent visual identity.
Fast & Efficient Workflow
Quickly browse, select, and copy guaranteed-safe colors. Our interactive grid eliminates the need to remember or look up specific hex codes, speeding up your design process.
How to Use the Web Safe Color Picker
Our tool makes it incredibly easy to find and use a web safe color. Follow these simple steps:
- Explore the Palette: Scroll through the interactive grid of all 216 web safe colors. The palette is logically organized to help you find the hue you need.
- Select a Color Swatch: Click on any color swatch that interests you. The swatch will become highlighted with a border to indicate it’s your active selection.
- View the Color Details: The display at the top of the tool will instantly update. It will show a larger preview of your chosen color along with its corresponding HEX and RGB values.
- Copy the Code: Click the “Copy HEX” button. The hexadecimal code for your selected color will be instantly copied to your clipboard, ready to be pasted into your CSS, HTML, or design software.
The Technical Side of Web Safe Colors
The web safe palette isn’t just a random collection of colors; it’s mathematically derived. It is often called the 6x6x6 color cube because it is generated by taking six equally spaced shades of red, green, and blue.
In the RGB color model, each color channel (Red, Green, and Blue) is represented by a number from 0 to 255. To create the web safe palette, you only use six specific values for each channel: 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, and 255. In hexadecimal, these values correspond to 00, 33, 66, 99, CC, and FF.
- Red Channel Values: 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, 255
- Green Channel Values: 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, 255
- Blue Channel Values: 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, 255
By combining these values in every possible way (6 red values × 6 green values × 6 blue values), you get a total of 6 × 6 × 6 = 216 unique colors. For example, the color #33CC99 is web safe because its components (33 for Red, CC for Green, and 99 for Blue) are all part of this specific set of values.
Are Web Safe Colors Still Relevant in 2025 and Beyond?
For most modern web design, the strict adherence to the 216-color palette is no longer necessary. Virtually all modern computers, tablets, and smartphones use 24-bit color, allowing them to display the full 16.7 million colors of the sRGB spectrum. A designer can confidently choose any color without fearing dithering.
However, the concept of a “safe” color palette has evolved. The term now finds relevance in specific niches:
- HTML Email Design: This is the most common modern use case. Many email clients, especially older desktop versions of Microsoft Outlook, have very limited and unpredictable CSS support. Sticking to web-safe colors in your email templates provides a higher guarantee of consistent rendering across different platforms.
- Low-Power and Legacy Devices: When designing for smart devices with e-ink displays, low-cost micro-controllers, or other hardware with limited color depth, using a web safe palette ensures your interface is displayed accurately.
- Branding and Simplicity: Some designers choose to work within the web safe palette as a creative constraint. It can lead to bold, high-contrast designs with a distinct, almost retro feel, and it simplifies the process of building a cohesive color scheme.
Ultimately, while you don’t need to use web safe colors for a public-facing website, knowing they exist and having a tool to access them is valuable for ensuring maximum compatibility in specific, challenging environments.
Frequently Asked Questions
The palette comes from the 6x6x6 color cube. In the early days of the web, computers could only display 256 colors. Windows and Mac OS each reserved about 40 colors for their own system interfaces, leaving only 216 colors that were common to both. The palette is formed by taking 6 shades of red, 6 shades of green, and 6 shades of blue, resulting in 6*6*6 = 216 colors.
For general web design, no. Over 99% of devices now support millions of colors (sRGB). However, web safe colors are still highly recommended for designing HTML emails to ensure compatibility with older clients like Outlook. They are also useful for developing on low-spec hardware or for designers seeking a constrained, high-contrast palette.
Dithering is a technique used by computer systems to simulate a color that it cannot display directly. It does this by creating a pattern of closely-spaced pixels of available colors. The human eye blends these pixels together, perceiving them as the intended color. However, this process often results in a speckled or noisy visual texture. Using web safe colors prevented this dithering on older monitors.
Not necessarily. While the web safe palette contains many bright, high-contrast colors, accessibility is about the *combination* of colors used. For example, placing yellow web-safe text (#FFFF00) on a white background (#FFFFFF) would have very poor contrast and be unreadable. You must always check the contrast ratio between your chosen foreground and background colors to meet WCAG accessibility standards.
A HEX code is web-safe if each of its three two-character components (representing Red, Green, and Blue) is one of the following six values: 00, 33, 66, 99, CC, or FF. For example, #00CC66 is web safe, but #1A2B3C is not.
Yes, many web safe colors can be written in shorthand. If both characters for a channel are the same (e.g., 00, 33, 66, 99, CC, FF), you can use a single character. For example, #FF6600 can be written as #F60. Our tool provides the full six-digit code for maximum compatibility, but browsers correctly interpret the shorthand version.
This tool is 100% free to use. All functionality happens within your browser, and no data about your selections is ever sent to or stored on a server. Your privacy is guaranteed.
sRGB is the standard color space for the modern web, capable of representing over 16.7 million colors. It has effectively replaced the need for the limited 216-color web safe palette in almost all browsing contexts. The web safe colors are simply a tiny subset of the full sRGB color space. When you use a web safe color, you are picking a color that was guaranteed to work on old systems and also exists perfectly within the modern sRGB standard.