Using Grayscale color filter on all my displays

Published on 12/28/2025

Apple’s accessibility feature ¹, the grayscale color filter, offers users the ability to turn their screens to grayscale. Apple offers this feature to people who experience visual overload and find too many colors fatiguing.

I tried it on my iPhone. On the home screen, everything looked the same, and I could not find the apps. After 2 minutes, I switched it off. The next day, I decided to give it another try and made my MacBook’s look gray. I use my Mac primarily for work, where I design user interfaces.

While using this filter, suddenly the Outlook and Teams red notification bubbles were not disturbing me anymore. I am able to work longer periods with higher focus. My design work starts with content, spacing, and contrast; I add the colors later. This way, my work is accessible to colorblind individuals from the outset.

When I turned off the filter, my eyes were jumping around the screen, noticing blue links, red notifications, and different color elements. It felt more chaotic compared to the grayscale.

Another unexpected effect of a colorless screen is seeing colors in physical words more vividly. My eyes see highly saturated colors on screens day and night. By decreasing the exposure to screen colors, I notice more the colors around me.

Of course, I still need to see colors, so I added a quick feature toggle button into the control center:

Since 3 weeks now, and I am still using it and I am not planning to switch back. Do you want to try something funny out of your comfort, try grayscale ;-)