Longing for fewer tantalizing distractions and more enticing clarity? Find out here how to turn on grayscale mode or reduce color intensity on your iPhone and see everything in a new, possibly less distracting, light.
First, I Show You an Image Three Times
If I show you the same image three times—once in green, once in red, and a blue version, too—fast enough one after another, you will see a kaleidoscope of colors. Red, green, and blue add up to all the visible colors, of course.
If I show you almost (almost!) the same image three times in succession fast enough, you will see motion, of course, as in a movie. Saccades of pictures add up to (assumed underlying) smooth motion.
Early TV famously involved throwing white light onto a fluorescent tube to show one black and white image after the other.
With the first paragraph in mind, engineers at CBS thought: “how about if we make that same tube show pictures in red, green, and blue one after the other?” Naturally, they did. In their wonderful (and publicly available) version of color TV, the field sequential system had a disk spin in front of the screen to turn the image blue, green, and red in succession.
Now, an iPhone typically already has those spinning colored disks installed. How about taking them off?
How to Turn on Grayscale Mode or Reduce Color Intensity on iPhone
Time needed: 2 minutes
To make your iPhone less enticing, distracting, or clearer to see with grayscale mode:
- Open the Settings app on the iPhone whose screen you want to turn black and white.
- Go to the Accessibility category.
- Select Display & Text Size.
- Choose Color Filters.
- Turn on Color Filters.
- Select Grayscale.
Paler shades of color: In iOS 17 and newer, you can adjust the amount of color removal under INTENSITY; you can still see colors, but toned down to your preference.
More contrast: See below for making controls appear less washed out and more distinguished in iPhone grayscale mode for easier use.
Individual apps: You can enable grayscale mode or reduced color saturation only for certain apps or except particular apps (say the camera and Photos); see below.
All black: Stop iPhone Screen from Turning On When Picked Up
On a Mac: How to Use Grayscale Mode on a Mac
Improve Distinction and Contrast for Grayscale Mode
To help make display elements more distinguishable without color cues on your iPhone:
- Open Accessibility options in the Settings app. (See above.)
- Go to Display & Text Size.
- Enable one or more of the following options as you see fit.
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| Button Shapes | Adds interface cues for tapping targets Example: Back to travel back or up a hierarchy is underlined. |
| Increase Contrast | Recommended; makes different display elements more recognizable overall in grayscale mode |
| Reduce Transparency | Remove blurring and transparent background to increase contrast further. |
| Differentiate Without Color | Recommended; add cues to interface elements that otherwise rely primarily on color to differentiate Example: Instead of solely the colors red and green, “on” and “off” labels appear. |
| Smart Invert | Turns grayscale mode into an always-on dark mode, but does not affect images and video display (other than rendering them black and white) |
How to Turn on Grayscale Mode or Reduce Color Intensity on iPhone: FAQ
If I make a screenshot in grayscale mode, will it be grayscale?
No.
iPhone applies the color filter only to what is displayed on screen, everything underneath happens as it does without a color filter.
This includes iPhone screenshots, which are saved including full color information. (With iPhone grayscale mode enabled, you will only see them in black and white, of course.)
Can I turn on grayscale mode only for certain apps (or exclude individual apps from it)?
Yes.
To toggle grayscale mode or reduced saturation for individual apps:
- Set up the reduced color or grayscale mode in Settings; see above.
- Open Shortcuts.
- Go to Automation.
- Tap +.
- Select App under Personal Automation.
- Tap Choose for App.
- Check all the app or apps for which you want to use the alternate display mode.
More than one: Choose all the apps that you want to be grayscale (or vice versa); you need not set up individual automations per app. - Tap Done.
- Select both Is Opened and Is Closed.
- Choose Run Immediately.
No notification: Leave the notification for the automation (Notify When Run) disabled.
- Tap Next.
- Choose New Blank Automation under Get Started.
- Tap Add Action.
- Select the Set Color Filters action from Settings under Apps.
Search: You can quickly find the action using the search bar, of course.
- Choose Toggle for the action.
Here’s how: Tap Turn, then select Toggle from the context menu that appears. - Tap Done.
To change the list of apps for which the altnative color settings apply, edit the App list on the action’s When screen in the Shortcuts app.
(How to turn on grayscale mode on your iPhone tested with iOS 15–17; first published October 2022, last updated May 2024)