What is a black screen?
A black screen fills your display with pure black while everything else on the computer keeps running. It is a quick way to hide what is on screen, cut glare in a dark room, save power on OLED displays and check a monitor for light leaks and stuck pixels.
How to get a black screen on your computer
- Choose whether to show a dim clock and how long the black screen should stay.
- Click Open black screen. It fills the whole display.
- Leave it: a single click or mouse movement doesn't close it.
- Double-click, double-tap or press Esc to come back.
What can I use a black screen for?
| Use | Tip |
|---|---|
| Hide the screen | Keep a download, render or music running while the display shows nothing. Untick the sleep option to let the display switch off on schedule. |
| Focus and less distraction | Black out a second monitor while you work on the first one, or during a talk or a film. |
| Save OLED battery | Black pixels on OLED screens are switched off, so a black screen uses almost no power for the display. |
| Backlight bleed and IPS glow | In a dark room, look at the edges and corners. Light clouds there are backlight bleed. |
| Stuck pixels | A stuck pixel shows as a bright red, green, blue or white dot on black. The white screen finds dead (black) pixels. |
| Clean the screen | Dust and fingerprints are easy to see on black when light shines on the display. |
Black screen or turning the monitor off?
Switching a monitor off can make the computer move windows around or change your display layout, and on a laptop you can't switch off the built-in screen without closing the lid. A black screen leaves everything as it is: one press of Esc and you are back where you were.
On an LCD monitor the backlight stays on behind the black, so it saves little power there. For long breaks, the display's own sleep setting saves more.
Black Screen: questions and answers
How do I make my screen black without turning it off?
Click Open black screen on this page. The display goes fully black while the computer keeps running; double-click, double-tap or press Esc to come back.
Does a black screen save battery?
On OLED screens, yes: black pixels are switched off. On LCD screens the backlight still shines behind the black, so the saving is small.
Will my downloads and music keep running?
Yes. The black screen is just a web page in full screen, so everything else on the computer carries on normally.
Why does a single click not close it?
So you can leave it open without ending it by accident. Use a double-click, a double-tap or the Esc key, or set a timer to exit on its own.
Can a black screen help with OLED burn-in?
A black screen rests the pixels, but it doesn't remove existing burn-in. Most OLED TVs and monitors have a built-in pixel refresh in their settings for that.