White Screen

How to use it

1. Click the white box above, or press F.
2. The whole screen turns white. Move the mouse or press an arrow key to see the controls hint.
3. Click anywhere or press Esc to go back.

On an iPhone the browser keeps its address bar, so the color fills the page but not the very top strip. Turn the phone sideways or scroll a little to hide the bar.

More than a white screen

• Lights: a ring light for makeup, an online mirror that uses your camera, a video call light, a tracing light box that ignores taps on the paper, and a dim night light with a fade-out timer.
• Screen tests: a full monitor test, a dead pixel test and a refresh rate test.
• Screensavers: a fireplace, an aquarium and a flip clock.
• Pranks: a broken screen, the hacker typer and bugs crawling on the screen.
• See every tool.

What people use a white screen for

• Light for video calls. Put a laptop or a second screen in front of you, a little above eye level. The white screen lights your face from the front and softens shadows. Try the warm setting if you look pale.
• Makeup and selfies. A phone or tablet showing white works as a small, even light when you have no ring light.
• Cleaning the screen. Dust, smears and fingerprints are easy to see against white (and against black). Turn the screen off before you wipe it.
• Dead pixel check. A dead pixel shows as a dark dot on white. Check the other colors too: a stuck pixel stays one color.
• Tracing. Put thin paper over a tablet at full brightness and trace the lines of a drawing or pattern. Tape the paper down and press lightly.
• Reading light or a quick lamp. In a dark room a white screen is enough to find something or read a note.

Warm, neutral or cool white

The color temperature slider tints the white. 6500 K is plain white, the white most screens are set to. Lower numbers look warmer, like a bulb in a living room; higher numbers look cooler and bluer, like daylight on a cloudy day. For video calls a slightly warm white is usually kinder to skin. For checking screen uniformity leave it at 6500 K.

The tint is an approximation of the color of light at each temperature, not a calibrated measurement.

Getting the most light

• Turn your device brightness to full. A web page cannot raise it for you.
• Switch off night mode, Night Shift or any blue light filter, or the white will look yellow.
• Use the biggest screen you have, and bring it closer. Light falls off quickly with distance.
• Leave "Keep the screen awake" on so the screen does not dim or lock halfway through a call.

Checking a screen with white

With the room dark and brightness at full, look across the white screen for patches that are dimmer, cloudier or tinted. Edges that glow or look darker than the middle are common on LCD screens. Then switch to black to see backlight bleed, and to red, green and blue to find a stuck pixel.