How to use grayscale mode on Android to cut screen time

What does grayscale mode do on Android?

Grayscale strips color from everything the screen draws: the home screen, notifications, every app, photos, and video. Nothing is uninstalled and no app changes. Turn the setting off and the color comes straight back.

It lives in two places, which is why guides disagree about where to find it:

• Color correction, under Accessibility. Google describes it as a set of modes that “help your device compensate for color blindness,” and Grayscale is one of those modes. This is the switch to use if you want black and white all day, or on demand. Google’s steps are on its text and display settings help page.
• Bedtime mode, inside Digital Wellbeing. It can turn grayscale on for the hours you sleep, together with Do Not Disturb, a dimmed wallpaper, and dark theme. Google documents it in the Digital Wellbeing help.

The setting is free, built in, and takes a minute. You do not need a separate app, a root, or an account.

Does grayscale really reduce screen time?

On average, yes, in the studies that have measured it. The effect is real but modest, and one finding matters as much as the headline number.

Two details are worth holding on to. First, the Dekker and Baumgartner participants also reported more perceived control over their phone use and less stress and “online vigilance,” the feeling of being on call to the phone. Second, their unlock count stayed flat. The authors read that as a sign of deep-rooted checking habits. Grayscale made the sessions shorter. It did not make the phone less likely to be picked up.

These are small samples, mostly students, over one to three weeks. Nobody has shown the effect lasts for months. Treat the numbers as a reason to try it, not as a promise about your own week. Our disclaimer applies: this is a habit tool, not a treatment.

How to turn on grayscale on a Pixel or most Android phones

These steps follow Google’s own help and match Pixel phones and most phones that stay close to stock Android. Google notes that some steps need Android 13 or newer, and that the feature is not available on every device.

1. Open Settings, then Accessibility. If you cannot find it, type “color correction” into the search bar at the top of Settings.
2. Tap Color and motion, then Color correction.
3. Select Grayscale in the list of correction modes. The other modes (for deuteranomaly, protanomaly, and tritanomaly) shift colors rather than removing them.
4. Turn on Use color correction. The screen goes black and white immediately, across every app.
5. Optional: adjust the intensity slider if your phone shows one. Google lists it as optional and device-dependent.

To undo it, return to the same screen and turn Use color correction off. That is the whole off switch, which is worth remembering the day your screen goes gray and you have forgotten why.

How to turn on grayscale on a Samsung Galaxy

Samsung moves the same feature into its own menus. Samsung’s support pages use the names below, and they note that menu names vary by model and One UI version. Older One UI builds say “Visibility enhancements” where newer ones say “Vision enhancements.”

1. Open Settings, then Accessibility, then Vision enhancements.
2. Tap Color correction (called Color adjustment on some models) and choose Grayscale.
3. Turn the feature on with the switch at the top of that page.
4. For a scheduled version, open Settings, Modes and Routines, Sleep. Samsung’s support article explains that Sleep mode can change the screen to grayscale, and how to switch that part off if you want color back.

Where to find grayscale, by phone and goal

How to make your phone grayscale only at bedtime

Night is a natural place to start. The phone is still there for an alarm or a message from someone who matters, but a feed in shades of gray is a poor reason to stay up. On a Pixel or a stock-leaning phone:

1. Open Settings, then Digital Wellbeing & parental controls, then Bedtime mode.
2. Set a Bedtime routine. Choose Use a schedule (start time, end time, days of the week) or Turn on while charging (Bedtime mode starts when the phone is plugged in inside a time window you set).
3. Tap Customize, then Screen options at bedtime, and turn on Grayscale. In the same list you can keep the screen dark, dim the wallpaper, and use dark theme only during bedtime.
4. Consider Turn off Bedtime at next alarm, so color comes back when your morning starts rather than at a fixed hour.

Google’s Pixel help on screen color at night adds one practical note: for Bedtime mode to behave, keep the Digital Wellbeing app updated and allow its notifications.

How to add a grayscale shortcut, and when not to

You will need color sometimes: a photo someone sent, a map with colored transit lines, a chart where red and green mean something. Android gives you several ways to flip the filter quickly.

• Quick Settings tile. Swipe down twice, tap Edit, and add Color correction. On Android 15 and newer you can also turn on Quick settings shortcut from the Color correction screen itself. Google covers both in finding accessibility services in Quick Settings.
• Accessibility shortcut. On the Color correction screen, open the shortcut option and pick the accessibility button, a two-finger swipe up, or holding both volume keys. Details are in Google’s accessibility shortcuts help.
• Samsung. Add the Color correction (or Color adjustment) tile to the Quick panel, or assign it to the Accessibility button under Accessibility, Advanced settings.

Here is the catch. A toggle that takes one tap to switch off also takes one tap to leave off. The moment you most want color back is usually the moment grayscale was supposed to help with, and the day you forget to turn it back on, you are back to a full-color phone without having decided to be. If you add a shortcut, use one that is slightly awkward, like the volume-key hold, and pair it with a bedtime schedule that turns grayscale on again by itself every evening.

Can you make only certain apps grayscale?

Not with a built-in setting. Color correction is all or nothing. Dekker and Baumgartner make the same point in their paper, suggesting phone makers offer grayscale for specific apps. It is a reasonable wish. It is not a switch you can flip today.

The workaround people use is an automation app, such as Tasker, that turns color correction on when a chosen app opens and off when it closes. On most phones that needs a permission called WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS, which an app cannot grant itself. You grant it from a computer with Android Debug Bridge (adb), after enabling developer options. It works, but it is a tinkerer’s setup. If the goal is simply to make one or two apps harder to fall into, a launcher-level tool is usually the shorter path. More on that below.

Which grayscale setup should you pick?

Why grayscale is not enough on its own

Go back to the unlock count. In the Android study, people used their phones for less time in grayscale, but they picked them up just as often. That fits a familiar pattern: the reach for the phone happens before any decision, and the color only matters once the screen is on. We wrote about that pattern in how to stop opening apps on autopilot.

So grayscale works best as one layer of three:

1. What the first screen shows. A gray grid of 30 icons is still a grid of 30 invitations. A home screen with a clock and the four apps you mean to open gives the checking habit less to land on. Our minimal Android home screen guide walks through it.
2. How appealing the apps look. This is the layer grayscale handles.
3. How easy the worst apps are to open. A daily limit, a timed block, or a short challenge before the app opens. Which one fits depends on the decision you are making, and limits, blocking, and reminders compares them side by side. If you want an app gone until a set time without deleting it, see blocking apps without uninstalling.

This is the gap ReClaim is built for. It is a minimalist Android launcher: a clock and the handful of apps you choose on the home screen, and a plain alphabetical list, black text and no icons, one swipe away. On top of that sit the tools for the third layer: blocks from 5 minutes to a year, daily and weekly limits, reminders that ask how long you intend to stay, schedules, and hidden apps with three levels of friction. There are no ads and no account. The feature overview has the full list, and the requirements page lists which permission each feature needs.

How to test grayscale on yourself in one week

The Android study used a simple design you can copy: one normal week, then one grayscale week, with the same numbers compared. Digital Wellbeing already records them.

1. Record a baseline. For seven days, change nothing. Open Settings, Digital Wellbeing, and tap the chart to see screen time, times opened, and notifications. Write down the daily totals, or check the week view at the end.
2. Switch to grayscale for seven days. Use the always-on setting, not just bedtime, and skip the quick toggle for this week.
3. Compare three numbers. Total screen time, unlocks, and time in your top three apps. If screen time fell but unlocks did not, you have the same result as the study: shorter sessions, same checking habit.
4. Decide what the second week told you. If the top app barely moved, color was not what kept you there, and a limit or block on that app will do more. If everything dropped and the phone felt calmer, keep grayscale and add the bedtime schedule so it survives the day you switch it off for a photo.

What to expect in the first few days

Expect the first day to feel strange. Photos and video are where the loss is most obvious, and that is partly the point: image-heavy feeds lose some of their pull. Text-based tools (email, notes, a calendar, messages) work almost as well in gray. Where color carries meaning, such as charts, maps, or status colors in a work app, switch color back for the task and let your schedule restore grayscale later.

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