White Screen
Open a plain full screen white on any device. A bright white screen shows dead pixels, dust, cracks and uneven brightness that a normal picture hides.
Wipe the screen first, then open a plain white screen in full screen.
A Full Screen White, Online
This page turns your display into a plain white screen. Press the button, the page goes full screen white, and the browser, the tabs and the rest of the site get out of the way.
Nothing else happens. No colors change, nothing moves, and nothing is saved. It is one flat white color until you press Escape.
An online white screen is useful in two ways. It shows up faults on your display that a normal picture hides, and it works as a soft, even light when you need one.
What a White Screen Shows You
White lights up every part of every pixel. Anything dark on the panel has nowhere left to hide.
Dead Pixels
A pixel that stopped working stays black. On a white background it looks like a small dark dot sitting in the same place every time.
Dust and Marks
Fingerprints, smears and dust show up clearly. Some of it wipes off. Dust that has worked its way under the glass will not, and now you know which is which.
Cracks
A hairline crack is almost invisible on a busy screen and obvious on a plain white one. Worth checking on any phone that has been dropped.
Uneven Brightness
One corner darker than the middle, or a patch that looks slightly yellow or pink. Panels age unevenly and white makes that easy to see.
White Spots on LCD
A whitespot on an LCD is a small bright blob, usually caused by pressure on the panel or by a piece of the backlight coming loose behind it. White and gray screens both show them.
How Bright It Really Gets
A full white screen at maximum brightness is the fairest way to see what a display can really do, and to compare two screens side by side.
How to Use the White Screen
It takes about a minute if you are only checking for dust and dead pixels.
Wipe the Screen
Use a soft dry cloth. Dust looks a lot like a dead pixel on a white background, so cleaning first saves you from hunting a speck of dirt.
Press the Button
Press Open White Screen. The display goes full screen white with nothing else on it.
Look Across the Whole Panel
Start in the middle, then the corners and the edges. Sit close enough to make out a single dot but far enough back to take in the whole screen.
Check Anything You Find
Try wiping the spot. If it moves or disappears it was dirt. If it stays exactly where it was, it is on the panel itself.
Press Escape when you are done and the page comes back as it was.
Other Ways to Use a Bright White Screen
A screen full of white is a decent light source, and people use it for far more than testing.
On a video call in a dark room, a bright white screen on a second monitor or a tablet works as a soft light on your face. Put it slightly to one side rather than straight on, and turn the brightness down until it stops being harsh.
Held behind a sheet of paper, a white tablet screen works as a light box for tracing. Photographers use the same trick as a small fill light for close-up shots.
It also helps when you clean a screen, because you can see the smears you are actually removing instead of guessing in the dark. And when a room light fails, a phone on a white screen at full brightness lights more of a room than a torch does, because the light is spread out instead of focused.
Some people use it the other way round as well: a plain white browser window is a quiet background for a screenshot, a scanner test, or a projector you are lining up before a talk. Anything that needs an even, empty surface works better on flat white than on a desktop covered in icons.
White Screen Page or a White Screen Video?
Plenty of people open a ten-hour white screen video on YouTube for the same job. A page like this one does it better, for three reasons.
The color is exact. A video is compressed, so a flat white can come out slightly gray or blotchy, which is the last thing you want when you are hunting dust.
There are no interruptions. No ads part way through, no player controls fading in when you touch the screen, and no next video starting on its own.
And it is far lighter on your device. A white page uses almost nothing, while a video keeps the processor busy, drains the battery and warms up a laptop for no reason at all.
Why Is My Screen All White?
If your screen has turned white on its own and you cannot get rid of it, that is a fault rather than a setting. A blank white out screen usually means the display has lost the picture it is meant to be showing.
The steps below are the safe first things to try. If none of them help, the device needs a repair shop rather than another restart.
Chromebook White Screen
People call this the Chromebook white screen of death. Hold Refresh and press Power to force a restart, which clears it on many machines.
If it comes straight back, plug in the charger and leave it an hour, then try again. A Powerwash is the next step, and it erases your local files, so use it only when nothing else works.
Dell and Other Laptops
Hold the power button for around fifteen seconds with the charger unplugged, then start it again. This clears the kind of stuck state that shows a white or blank screen.
If it still comes up white, plug in an external monitor. A good picture there points at the laptop panel or its cable. A white picture there points at the graphics side instead.
iPad Screen Is White
A white iPad screen is often fixed by a force restart. On models without a home button, press volume up, then volume down, then hold the power button until the Apple logo appears.
If the screen stays white after that, or the iPad has been dropped, the display cable inside has usually come loose and it needs a shop.
Half the Screen Is White
A laptop with half the screen white, or a white band down one side, is nearly always a hardware fault: the panel, or the ribbon cable running through the hinge.
Open and close the lid slowly and watch what happens. If the white area changes with the angle, the cable is the likely cause.
Phone Screen Turned White
Try a force restart first. If white areas appear after a drop, or spread out from one point, that is physical damage to the panel and no restart will bring it back.
White Spots, Not a White Screen
Small bright spots on an otherwise normal picture are a different problem. On an LCD they usually come from pressure on the panel or a loose part of the backlight, and they do not spread on their own.
White Screen on a Monitor or Laptop
On a desktop, open this page on the computer the monitor is plugged into and go full screen. With two or three monitors, drag the browser window onto each one in turn, because a white color that looks clean on your main screen can look distinctly yellow on the one beside it.
That side by side comparison is the honest way to judge a white computer monitor. Colors that look fine on their own often turn out to be warm or cool the moment another screen sits next to them.
A white monitor screen is also the quickest way to check a second-hand desk setup. Put the same white on every panel, stand back, and any screen that has aged badly will stand out from the others straight away.
On a laptop, look for a grid of faint light patches on the white background. Those are pressure marks from the keyboard touching the panel with the lid shut, and they are common on thin laptops carried in tight bags.
Set the monitor to its standard picture mode before you judge anything. Game and film modes push colors around on purpose, and a white screen in those modes tells you nothing useful.
Other Color Screens
White finds dark faults. The other colors each find something different, so it is worth running through a few.
Black Screen
The opposite check: bright dots, stuck pixels and light leaking in at the edges.
Gray Screen
The best background for uneven brightness, cloudy patches and burn-in.
Red Screen
Checks the red part of every pixel on its own.
Green Screen
Green is the color your eyes pick faults out of most easily.
Blue Screen
Useful for banding and uneven areas in dark blues.
Screen Color Test
Steps through all of the solid colors one at a time.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a full screen white?
Press Open White Screen. The page fills your display with plain white and hides everything else. Press Escape to come back.
What is a white screen used for?
Finding dead pixels, dust, cracks and uneven brightness on a display, and as a soft light for video calls, tracing or cleaning the screen.
Is the white pure white?
Yes. The page uses plain white, so every part of every pixel is switched fully on.
My laptop screen turned white on its own. What do I do?
Hold the power button for about fifteen seconds with the charger unplugged, then start it again. If it stays white, plug in an external monitor to find out whether the panel or the graphics side is at fault.
What is the Chromebook white screen of death?
A Chromebook stuck on a blank white screen. Holding Refresh and pressing Power forces a restart and clears it on many machines.
Why is my iPad screen white?
Usually a force restart fixes it: volume up, volume down, then hold the power button until the Apple logo appears. If it stays white after a drop, the display cable inside has probably come loose.
What are white spots on an LCD screen?
Small bright blobs, usually from pressure on the panel or a loose piece of the backlight behind it. They are not dead pixels and they do not spread on their own.
Can a white screen damage my display?
A few minutes of white does no harm. Leaving any still image on an OLED screen for hours at full brightness is not a good idea, so close it when you are finished.
Is this white screen free?
Yes. It is free, it needs no app and there is no account to make.
Open a White Screen
One button, one flat white screen, and Escape to come back.
Free, no app to install, and it works on a monitor, laptop, tablet or phone.
Open White Screen