How to make your iPhone grayscale to cut your screen time

How to turn on grayscale on iPhone

1. Open Settings › Accessibility.
2. Tap Display & Text Size, then Color Filters.
3. Turn on Color Filters and select Grayscale in the list.

Your screen goes black and white right away. Only the display changes: the photos you take are still saved in color, and everything looks normal again as soon as you switch the filter off.

Apple documents this on its support page about display and text size preferences.

Toggle grayscale with a triple-click

Digging through Accessibility every time you want to see a photo in color is the fastest way to give up on grayscale. Put it on a gesture instead:

1. Go to Settings › Accessibility › Accessibility Shortcut.
2. Select Color Filters (and deselect anything else you don’t use, so the triple-click goes straight to it).
3. From now on, triple-clicking the side button (or the Home button, if your iPhone has one) turns grayscale on and off.

If you’d rather not use the button, add the Accessibility Shortcuts control to Control Center from Settings › Control Center. And if you keep triggering it by accident, slow down the click speed in Settings › Accessibility › Side Button.

Grayscale only in Instagram or TikTok (with Shortcuts)

The most comfortable version: your phone stays in color and grayscale kicks in only when you open the apps that hook you. You do it with two automations in the built-in Shortcuts app.

Automation 1: grayscale when the app opens

1. Open Shortcuts and go to the Automation tab. Tap + (or “New Automation” if it’s your first).
2. Pick the App trigger, tap Choose and select Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or whichever apps you struggle with.
3. Keep Is Opened checked and choose Run Immediately so it doesn’t ask every time. Tap Next.
4. Create a new shortcut, add the Set Color Filters action, leave it set to On and save.

Automation 2: color back when you leave

Repeat with the same apps, but check Is Closed (and uncheck “Is Opened”) and set the action to Off. When you go back to your Home Screen, color comes back.

You can flip it, too: grayscale all day and color only in Camera, Photos or Maps. Leave the filter on and build the automations so it turns off when those apps open and back on when they close.

Automations live on one device: they’re backed up to iCloud but don’t sync, so you’d set them up again on an iPad.

Does grayscale actually reduce screen time?

Yes, a bit. It’s one of the few phone-habit tricks with some research behind it:

• In a study of 84 people who used their phones for more than four hours a day, one week in grayscale cut screen time by about 20 minutes a day (from 287 to 268 on average). Interestingly, they didn’t unlock their phones less often, but they reported feeling more in control and less like they were overusing it (Dekker & Baumgartner, Mobile Media & Communication, 2023).
• In another with 133 college students, those who switched their phones to grayscale between two lab visits showed a significant drop in screen time from their baseline (Holte, Giesen & Ferraro, Current Psychology, 2023).

Both studies were short and used people who already wanted to cut back, so treat grayscale as what it is: a small, free nudge. The pattern suggests it doesn’t stop you reaching for your phone, but it makes you stay a little less once you’re there. That’s why it works best alongside something that adds friction before you open the app, like moving apps off your Home Screen or giving them a limit (see how to set app limits on iPhone).

Tips so you don’t switch it off after two days

• Start at night. That’s when grayscale bothers you least and when putting the phone down is hardest. For a full evening routine, see how to stop using your phone before bed.
• Use the per-app version if all-day gray feels gloomy or gets in the way at work.
• Don’t beat yourself up for turning it off to see a photo. That’s what the triple-click is for; what matters is that gray is the default.
• Stack it with other changes. How to stop doomscrolling has seven more tricks that add up with this one.

How to turn on grayscale on Android

Menu names vary by brand, but on almost every Android phone it lives under Accessibility:

• Google Pixel and stock Android: Settings › Accessibility › Color and motion › Color correction, turn on Use color correction and choose Grayscale. You can add a shortcut from the same screen.
• Samsung Galaxy: Settings › Accessibility › Visibility enhancements › Color correction, then pick grayscale (names vary slightly by model).
• Only at night: Bedtime mode in Settings › Digital Wellbeing & parental controls can turn your screen black and white on a schedule. On Samsung, look in Settings › Modes and Routines › Sleep.