Gray Screen
Open a flat full screen gray on any device, in light, mid and dark levels. Gray is the best color for uneven brightness, cloudy patches and burn-in.
Opens a mid gray. Use the arrow keys or tap to move between mid, light and dark gray.
A Plain Gray Screen, Online
This page fills your display with flat gray. Press the button and the screen goes full screen, with the browser and the rest of the site out of the way.
It opens on a mid gray, which is the most useful level for checking a panel. Click, tap or press the right arrow key and you get a light gray screen, then a dark one, so you can compare all three on the same display.
Grey and gray are the same colour, spelled differently on either side of the Atlantic. A gray screen test and a grey screen test are the same thing, so whichever way you searched for it, this is the page.
Nothing moves and nothing flashes. It stays there until you press Escape.
Gray Screen Test: What It Shows
Gray is the test color the people who repair screens reach for first. White is too bright and black is too dark to judge evenness, and gray sits in the middle where problems have nowhere to hide.
Uneven Brightness
Patches that look darker or lighter than the rest of the panel. On a flat gray these show up immediately, while white washes them out completely.
Screen Burn-in
A faint shape left behind by a status bar, a channel logo or a keyboard that sat in one place for months. Gray shows burn-in better than any other color.
Clouding and Mura
Soft cloudy blotches across an LCD panel, sometimes called mura. They are almost invisible on a busy picture and obvious on a mid gray.
Dust and Marks
Gray is dim enough to look at comfortably for a while, which makes it good for a slow careful check of the glass.
Banding
Stepping between light, mid and dark gray shows whether your panel moves smoothly between tones or jumps.
Stuck Pixels
A pixel stuck on red, green or blue stands out on gray, since gray has no strong colour of its own to hide it.
Why Gray Is the Best Test Color
Gray asks every part of every pixel to work at the same middling level. Red, green and blue all light up equally, none of them at full power.
That balance is what makes it so useful. At full brightness a panel hides its faults behind glare, and at black there is nothing lit to compare. In the middle you can see the difference between one part of the screen and another, which is exactly what uneven brightness and clouding are.
It is also the honest test of colour balance. A gray that leans blue, green or pink is telling you the panel is not mixing the three colors evenly, and that is much harder to see on white.
Repair shops and reviewers use gray slides for the same reasons. If you only run one screen after the color test, make it this one.
How to Use the Gray Screen
Two minutes, and a room that is not too bright.
Clean the Screen
Wipe it with a soft dry cloth. Marks on the glass look like panel problems on a flat gray.
Open the Gray Screen
Press Open Gray Screen. The display goes full screen on a mid gray with nothing else on it.
Step Through the Levels
Click, tap or use the arrow keys to move between mid, light and dark gray. Faults show at different levels, so it is worth seeing all three.
Look for Patches, Not Dots
On gray you are hunting soft areas rather than single pixels: a darker corner, a cloudy band, a faint shape left behind by an old image.
Press Escape when you are done and the page comes back as it was.
Gray Screen Image or Wallpaper?
People often look for a gray screen image to download, or a gray screen wallpaper to set as a background. Both have their place, and neither is the best way to test a panel.
An image gets scaled to fit your window, and scaling changes pixels. A compressed file can also turn a flat gray into faint blocks, which is the very thing you would be looking for. This page draws the color directly at the size of your screen, so what you see is your panel and nothing else.
As a wallpaper, gray is a genuinely good choice. It is neutral, it does not fight with icons, and photographers and designers use a mid gray desktop so that nothing around a photo pulls their colour judgement about. Any solid gray image works for that, and there is no reason to hunt for a large file.
For a quick neutral background during a call or a screen share, this page does the job without touching your settings at all.
Why Editors Work on Gray
There is a reason photo and video programs put a grey background behind your work instead of a white or a black one.
Your eyes judge colour by comparison, not on its own. A photo on a white background looks darker and warmer than the same photo on black, even though nothing about the photo has changed. A neutral mid grey gives your eyes nothing to lean on, so what you see is closer to what the picture really is.
The same idea is behind the grey cards photographers hold up before a shoot. A known neutral tone gives the camera, and the person editing later, a fixed point to work from.
If you edit pictures, it is worth setting your desktop to a plain grey for the same reason. A bright wallpaper behind an editing window quietly pulls every colour decision you make.
Gray Screen on Windows
If Windows has gone grey on its own, there are two very different causes, and one of them takes five seconds to fix.
The first is the colour filter. A gray screen Windows 10 and Windows 11 users run into is very often this: both have a grayscale setting for people who need it, and it has a keyboard shortcut that is easy to hit by accident, Windows key with Ctrl and C. If your whole screen is grey but everything still works, press that combination and see if the colour comes back. You can also turn it off under Accessibility, in Colour filters.
The second is a grey screen at startup, often with a spinning circle or nothing at all. That is Windows failing to finish loading, and it usually follows an update or a driver change. Hold the power button to switch the machine off, start it again, and if it fails twice more Windows offers the recovery menu on its own.
From that menu, Safe Mode is the useful door. It starts Windows without the extra drivers, and if the grey screen does not appear there, a display driver is the likely cause. Roll it back or reinstall it from Safe Mode.
A grey screen that only appears on one program, while the desktop looks normal, is that program rather than Windows. Hardware acceleration in a browser is the usual culprit.
Gray Screen on iPhone
A grey iPhone screen is nearly always the same story: a colour filter, not a fault.
Look in Settings, then Accessibility, then Display and Text Size, then Colour Filters. If that is switched on with Greyscale chosen, everything on the phone looks grey. It gets turned on by accident more often than you would think, because it can be attached to the triple-click shortcut on the side button.
Some people also turn it on deliberately, since a grey phone is far less interesting to look at and easier to put down at night. If yours went grey and you share the phone with anyone, that is worth asking about before you worry.
A gray screen iPhone owners see while the phone is starting, with a progress bar or an Apple logo, is a software update or a restore doing its work. Leave it plugged in and let it finish.
If the screen is grey and frozen, force a restart: volume up, volume down, then hold the side button until the logo appears. If grey patches stay on screen after that, especially after a drop, the panel needs a repair.
Other Color Screens
Gray finds soft, spread-out faults. These find the sharp ones.
White Screen
Dead pixels, dust, cracks and marks on the glass.
Black Screen
Stuck pixels, bright dots and backlight bleed.
Red Screen
The red part of every pixel, and a soft light for night vision.
Green Screen
The color your eyes read best, so faults show up first.
Blue Screen
Banding in dark tones, and blue tint problems explained.
Screen Color Test
Steps through nine colors, gray included, one at a time.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a full screen gray?
Press Open Gray Screen. The page fills your display with flat gray, and the arrow keys move between mid, light and dark gray. Press Escape to come back.
What does a gray screen test show?
Uneven brightness, cloudy patches, burn-in, banding and stuck pixels. Gray shows soft, spread-out faults far better than white or black.
Why is gray better than white for testing?
White is so bright that it hides uneven areas behind glare. A mid gray lights every pixel part way, which is where differences across the panel become visible.
Is it gray screen or grey screen?
Both. Gray is the American spelling and grey is the British one. They are the same colour and the same test.
Why has my Windows screen turned gray?
Usually the grayscale colour filter. Press Windows key, Ctrl and C together to switch it off, or find it under Accessibility and Colour filters.
Why is my iPhone screen gray?
Nearly always the greyscale colour filter. Go to Settings, Accessibility, Display and Text Size, then Colour Filters, and turn it off.
Windows shows a gray screen at startup. What now?
Hold the power button to switch off and start again. After two failed starts Windows offers a recovery menu, and Safe Mode lets you roll back the display driver.
Do I need a gray screen image or wallpaper?
Not for testing, since an image gets scaled and compressed. As a plain desktop background gray is a good choice, and any solid gray file will do.
Is this gray screen free?
Yes. It is free, it needs no app and there is no account to make.
Open a Gray Screen
Three levels of flat gray, full screen, and Escape to come back.
Free, no app to install, and it works on a monitor, laptop, tablet, phone or TV.
Open Gray Screen