You can change the color by changing the colorscheme you are using.
There are probably many entries on the file defining your colorscheme, but you can find which one you should change by executing :highlight
, which will list all current highlight groups and how they are displayed. Just look for the one that hurts your eyes and change it.
If you are using a colorscheme that comes bundled with vim you could follow the instructions at :help 6.3
:
You could also write your own color scheme. This is how you do it:
1. Select a color scheme that comes close. Copy this file to your own Vim
directory. For Unix, this should work:
!mkdir ~/.vim/colors
!cp $VIMRUNTIME/colors/morning.vim ~/.vim/colors/mine.vim
This is done from Vim, because it knows the value of $VIMRUNTIME.
Edit:
When I run :highlight none of the colors match the one I don't like,
including the MoreMsg highlighting group. Nothing changes when I put
the line hi MoreMsg term=bold ctermfg=black gui=bold guifg=black in
~/.vim/colors/mine.vim.
This is really unexpected. Try restarting Vim or issuing :colorscheme mine
to ensure that your changes are being read.
The colors are usually defined by the colorscheme, but there is a chance that some plugin you are using is overwriting the highlight group.
At first you should check if the colorscheme is indeed the culprit. Try commenting all the lines on the current colorscheme and then restart Vim. If nothing changes you could also try changing the colorscheme and check if the color of the message changes.
If the problem persists, you should follow the procedure described on Vim-FAQ 2.5. Some relevant parts follows:
2.5. I have a "xyz" (some) problem with Vim. How do I determine it is a
problem with my setup or with Vim? / Have I found a bug in Vim?
First, you need to find out, whether the error is in the actual
runtime files or any plugin that is distributed with Vim or whether it
is a simple side effect of any configuration option from your .vimrc
or .gvimrc. So first, start vim like this:
vim -u NONE -U NONE -N -i NONE
this starts Vim in nocompatible mode (-N), without reading your
viminfo file (-i NONE), without reading any configuration file (-u
NONE for not reading .vimrc file and -U NONE for not reading a .gvimrc
file) or even plugin.
If the error does not occur when starting Vim this way, then the
problem is either related to some plugin of yours or some setting in
one of your local setup files. You need to find out, what triggers the
error, you try starting Vim this way:
vim -u NONE -U NONE -N
If the error occurs, the problem is your .viminfo file. Simply delete
the viminfo file then. If the error does not occur, try:
vim -u ~/.vimrc --noplugin -N -i NONE
This will simply use your .vimrc as configuration file, but not load
any plugins. If the error occurs this time, the error is possibly
caused by some configuration option inside your .vimrc file. Depending
on the length of your vimrc file, it can be quite hard to trace the
origin within that file.
The best way is to add :finish command in the middle of your .vimrc.
Then restart again using the same command line. If the error still
occurs, the bug must be caused because of a setting in the first half
of your .vimrc. If it doesn't happen, the problematic setting must be
in the second half of your .vimrc. So move the :finish command to the
middle of that half, of which you know that triggers the error and
move your way along, until you find the problematic option. If your
.vimrc is 350 lines long, you need at a maximum 9 tries to find the
offending line (in practise, this can often be further reduced, since
often lines depend on each other).
If the problem does not occur, when only loading your .vimrc file, the
error must be caused by a plugin or another runtime file (indent
autoload or syntax script). Check the output of the :scriptnames
command to see what files have been loaded and for each one try to
disable each one by one and see which one triggers the bug. Often
files that are loaded by vim, have a simple configuration variable to
disable them, but you need to check inside each file separately.
If your problem still occurs when using vim -u NONE -U NONE -N -i NONE
then you could check if it is specific to your terminal by trying to reproduce it on another type of terminal (xterm, urxvt, etc).