Guide · Focus
How to make websites black and white in Chrome or Edge
Bright thumbnails, red notification badges and colorful buttons are designed to catch your eye. Turning a site gray takes away a lot of that pull. Many people find it makes endless scrolling less tempting and long reading easier on the eyes.
Option 1: Gray your whole screen (built in)
Both Windows and macOS can show everything in grayscale. This affects every app, not just your browser.
Windows 11
- Open Settings → Accessibility → Color filters.
- Turn on Color filters and choose Grayscale.
- Optional: turn on the keyboard shortcut there, then press Windows key + Ctrl + C to switch it on and off.
Mac
- Open System Settings → Accessibility → Display.
- Turn on Color filters and choose Grayscale.
Good for: going fully gray, everywhere, for a while.
Downsides: it's all or nothing. Photos, maps, charts and anything where color matters go gray too, so most people end up switching it off again.
Option 2: Gray only the sites you choose with Quiet Grayscale
Quiet Grayscale is our free extension for making individual websites black and white while the rest of your screen stays in color.
- Install Quiet Grayscale and pin it to your toolbar.
- Go to a site that pulls you in, like a social feed or a news homepage.
- Click the icon and switch on Grayscale this site. The browser asks once for access to that site so it stays gray on every visit.
- Adjust the strength slider, from a light fade to full black and white.
Other ways to use it:
- Every website. Go gray everywhere, and keep a short list of sites in color (your photo library, your maps).
- Just for now. Press Alt+Shift+G to gray the tab you're on for the moment, or to pause a gray site briefly when you need to see something in color.
Completely free. Turn the sites you pick black and white, with a strength slider and a one-key shortcut. No accounts, no ads, no tracking.
Get it for Microsoft Edge Coming soon to Chrome.
Does grayscale actually help?
It doesn't block anything, so it's not a willpower replacement. What it does is make feeds and thumbnails less eye-catching, which many people say helps them notice when they're scrolling out of habit and stop sooner. It's an easy experiment: gray your two or three most distracting sites for a week and see how it feels.
Quick answers
Will it gray out videos and images too?
Yes, everything on a grayed site, including photos and video. That's the point for distracting sites; for sites where color matters, leave them off the list.
Does it work in dark mode?
Yes. It only removes color, so dark sites stay dark.
Does it see what I browse?
No. It applies a style to the sites you choose and doesn't read or send anything. See our privacy policy.