Do You Still Need a Screensaver?

Screensavers were invented to solve a real problem. On old CRT monitors, an image left on screen for hours burned permanently into the phosphor coating, and a moving picture spread the wear evenly. Displays have changed completely since then. Whether you still need one depends on the kind of screen you have — and on what you actually want it to do while you're away.

LCD monitors and laptops

LCDs don't burn in the way CRTs did. A static image can occasionally leave a faint temporary ghost on some panels, called image retention, but it fades on its own within minutes or hours.

A screensaver does nothing to extend an LCD's life, because the backlight stays on whatever the pixels are showing. Turning the display off does: it saves power and backlight hours. On an LCD, a screensaver is purely cosmetic — enjoy one if you like it, but set the display to switch off as well.

OLED monitors, laptops and TVs

OLED is where burn-in matters again. Each pixel makes its own light and wears a little whenever it's lit, so a taskbar, a channel logo or a game's HUD left on screen for long stretches can wear those pixels faster than their neighbors and leave a permanent shadow. OLED Burn-In: Causes, Prevention, and How to Check covers how much risk there really is.

A moving screensaver is better than a static desktop on OLED, because it spreads the wear around. But it still lights pixels. Two things protect an OLED better:

• Turning the screen off — the best protection, and the default on most OLED monitors after a few minutes.
• A pure black screen. An OLED pixel showing black is switched off and doesn't wear at all, so a full-screen Black Screen is the next best thing to switching the display off.

Most OLED screens also protect themselves with pixel shifting, logo dimming and periodic refresh cycles. Leave those features on, and let the refresh cycles run when the screen asks.

TVs

Modern TVs switch to their own screensaver or ambient mode when a source sits on a static menu, and most turn off after a period without input. On an OLED TV that's worth keeping. If you've disabled it to keep a picture up, use a black screen during long pauses instead.

When a screensaver still makes sense

• As an ambient display: a clock or a slow animation on a spare monitor, or a TV in the background.
• On a shared or public screen, where you want something on display rather than a blank panel.
• When the screen needs to stay awake — while you monitor something, or for guests — but you'd rather show motion than a static image.
• For the look of it. Matrix rain, a starfield or a bouncing logo still make a desk feel alive.

The Screensaver runs those classics in a browser tab, full-screen, with nothing to install. It lets your display sleep normally by default; switch on Keep awake in its controls when you want it to stay up.

Lock your computer, too

A screensaver doesn't lock your computer unless you tell it to. On Windows, tick "On resume, display logon screen" in the screen saver settings. On a Mac, set the password requirement after the screen saver begins in Lock Screen settings. Better still, get in the habit of locking manually: Windows key + L on Windows, Control-Command-Q on a Mac.

Recommended settings

• Windows: Settings, then Personalization, then Lock screen, then Screen saver sets the screensaver. Settings, then System, then Power (or Power & battery) sets when the screen turns off.
• macOS: System Settings, then Lock Screen, sets when the screen saver starts and when the display turns off.
• Turn the display off after 5 to 15 minutes on any screen, and sooner on OLED.
• Hide static elements on OLED: auto-hide the taskbar or Dock, and use a dark theme.

If you're worried an OLED already has some wear, the Burn-In Test shows full-screen solid colors where a faint ghost of a taskbar or logo is easiest to spot.