What a white screen is useful for
A plain white screen sounds simple, but it is one of the most useful things your display can show. Because every pixel is lit at full strength, it turns your monitor, laptop or tablet into an even, soft light source and shows up anything sitting on the glass.
- Light for video calls. Put a white screen on a second monitor or tablet beside your webcam and your face is lit evenly, without buying a ring light. Use the warm setting if the cool white makes you look pale.
- Cleaning your screen. Dust, fingerprints and smears are easy to see against white. Turn the brightness up, wipe with a dry microfibre cloth and check again.
- Spotting dead or stuck pixels. A dead pixel shows as a dark dot on white. For a full check, use our dead pixel test, which cycles through several colours.
- Checking backlight and uniformity. Uneven brightness, yellow patches or a darker corner stand out on an all-white image.
- Tracing and reading. Lay thin paper over a tablet showing white to trace a drawing, or use it as a light box for film negatives.
How to use this white screen
- Press Start white screen or click the preview. The page fills the whole display.
- Choose Cool, Neutral or Warm white, and set the brightness. While it is showing, the up and down arrow keys change brightness too.
- Press Esc or double-click (double-tap on a phone) to come back.
Tick Keep the screen awake to stop your device dimming or locking while the white screen is up. This uses your browser's wake lock, so it only lasts while this page is open. The sleep timer switches the screen off for you after the time you choose, which is handy if you are using it as a gentle light.
Making it brighter
The slider here can only dim the picture. If the white still isn't bright enough, turn up your device's own brightness, switch off night mode, Night Light or True Tone (they tint white towards yellow), and unplug any power-saving mode that limits brightness on battery.