2017/10/06 · 16:21
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My screen went gray: how to turn off Windows 10 color filter mode

I like to think I know my way around Windows after using it daily since Windows 3.1. Sometimes it still surprises me, though.

Today I was working on a blog post for the ENow blog (stay tuned, you’ll see it shortly). I went to copy a quote from a press release and, suddenly, this is what I saw:

Grayscale Windows screen

Where’d my color go?

I couldn’t figure out what the hell had happened, but my screen was suddenly gray. It was at the correct resolution, and everything looked the same except it was gray. At first I thought I’d mistakenly turned on high contrast mode (which you do with left Alt+left Shift+PrtSc) but nope.

A little digging led me to the dialog shown in the image above. Apparently Windows has a “color filter” mode that, when invoked, makes it easier to see certain colors. It’s intended for people with color-vision deficiencies. For ease of use, Microsoft tied it to a key combination: the Windows key + Ctrl + C. I must have accidentally bumped the Windows key while copying my quote.

Now you know.

119 Comments

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119 responses to “My screen went gray: how to turn off Windows 10 color filter mode”

  1. compteo
    2017/10/29 at 16:27

    I had this problem today. I wasn’t aware when copy/pasting some text that I hit CTRL+Windows+C

    My color went to Black & White, I reinstalled my windows drivers trying to fix it until coming across your blog. Thanks for the quick hotkey fix. Windows can be retarded sometimes with these updates and hotkeys no one will ever want.

    Reply
  2. CJ
    2017/11/21 at 18:41

    Same thing happened to me today. I had to figure it out on my own, because my Google searches all came back with suggestions about drivers and monitor cables – which doesn’t apply. Glad someone else shouted this out too.

    Reply
  3. Lloyd
    2017/12/03 at 18:45

    Thanks for this info. Just happened to me, and searches gave me all sorts of ridiculous fixes. That should not be activated by hot keys! I would be for removing all of them.

    Reply
  5. Scorpio
    2017/12/11 at 05:43

    You sir, are my fucking hero!!!! Thank you!

    Reply
  6. John
    2017/12/11 at 12:41

    THANK YOU. I was messing around with drivers for two hours before I found this. You’d think the hot keys would at least tell you when you’d triggered something like this.

    Reply
  7. Tin
    2017/12/18 at 00:50

    Thank you, Paul!
    Bad key combination to make the screen go grayscale. There should be another combination that is not too close to the very frequently used Ctrl + C.

    Reply
  8. MAURO
    2017/12/18 at 09:43

    Same problem – thanl YOU!!!

    Reply
  9. Jamie @ YOUpresent
    2017/12/21 at 14:53

    I’m getting the same thing within Windows 10 inside a Parallels VM. It’s not Win/Cmd Key + Ctrl + C though. Sometimes it’s happening with just Ctrl + C, but oddly, not all the time!!!

    Reply
    • Larry
      2018/01/26 at 17:47

      I am using a MacBook Pro with Parallels, and when I use CMD+Ctrl+C to get rid of my gray screen, it launches Evernote! Any ideas?

      Reply
      • robichaux
        2018/02/13 at 10:54

        I haven’t used Evernote in years, but I bet it has a menu-bar icon for its settings– check there to see what its shortcut key is.

  10. fumblefingers
    2017/12/24 at 18:45

    Thank you, I couldn’t first figure out how to get color back. Is there some option to disable the ctrl+win+C hotkey? I accidentally press it when trying to do ctrl+C sometimes.

    Reply
  11. Ubri
    2017/12/27 at 22:38

    Thanks for sharing. You solve the problem for a lot people. Thank you.

    Reply
  12. scott
    2017/12/29 at 13:13

    My goodness this is dumb… not even a notification window, or a balloon pup-up. Thank you, many times over!

    Reply

  13. Pingback: Windows 10 turned grey scale display – 1OO Club

  14. RD
    2018/01/06 at 05:25

    Thanks, this helped me a lot.

    Reply
  15. whatever
    2018/01/07 at 08:22

    thanks this helped me resolve my gray screen
    issue.

    Reply
  16. Mon
    2018/01/09 at 07:33

    THANK YOU for this. was trying for 2 hours to fix via the control panel but couldn’t find any settings. Like the previous comments mentioned, can a pop up not appear when triggered to notify you…Something so simple that can cause a headache!!

    Thanks once again 🙂

    Reply
  17. yeswriter
    2018/01/10 at 22:07

    Holy cow. You just saved my sanity.

    Reply
  18. Putin
    2018/01/11 at 13:35

    Thanks a lot man. I was *THIS* close to went full retard. Luckily sanity quickly restored and your entry is the first on the search results.

    Reply
  19. Scott
    2018/01/12 at 18:45

    Why windows why???? You couldn’t map this to a less used key??

    Thank you for saving me!

    Reply
  20. Dixie Agostino
    2018/01/16 at 17:18

    CTRL+Windows+C and CTRL+C and Windows+C … none of these are working! Any other ideas? It’s the same problem, but all the Windows support I get is about printing.

    Reply
    • don
      2018/07/24 at 17:54

      Click on the hour glass at the bottom menu bar, next to the Window key, Type color in the search window box. Select “Turn color filter on or off”, Select “off” in the Apply color filter field.
      Close the window box.

      Reply
  21. Amit
    2018/01/18 at 23:37

    Thanks its help for me

    Reply
  22. Valerie
    2018/01/30 at 08:15

    OMG thank you.

    Reply
  23. Jose Jesus
    2018/01/30 at 22:17

    Thank you very much. I was thinking I had a virus. But thanks to your comment I can continue working and be calm without that kind of concern.

    Reply
  24. iamstephaniecherrellecompany
    2018/01/31 at 00:40

    Thanks, that just happened to me. Glade you told me!

    Reply
  25. Matheus
    2018/01/31 at 09:04

    Thanks!!! Great help.

    Reply
  26. supOllama
    2018/01/31 at 21:24

    THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH THIS WAS SOOOO HELPFUL!!!! Now I’ma troll my firends… ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

    Reply
  27. JA Fairhurst
    2018/02/01 at 05:28

    I didn’t actually notice I’d done this until i dropped back to the desktop from Excel by which time I’d forgotten that I’d tried copying something. Thankfully managed to sort it with minimal fussing (i.e blindly hit every key combination I could think of! 🙂 )

    Reply
  28. Roy
    2018/02/01 at 09:28

    I accidentally hit the key combo and colors were off… I started searching for an answer… Just before I was to head down the ugly path, I clicked on your link…. THANKS! You saved me a lot of time and frustration!

    Reply
  29. Louis
    2018/02/05 at 03:41

    Thanks. Other forums wanted me to re-install video drivers! You saved me a lot of stress.

    Reply
  31. Elizabeth Doerfler
    2018/02/13 at 08:29

    Thank you! This was a very helpful fix. Thanks for posting!

    Reply
  32. Mary
    2018/02/13 at 10:40

    Thank you sir for saving me. This happened twice to me within a week. I didn’t know how did I make the color back last time, I even tried restarted windows. I am glad I googled and found your link! Thanks again!

    Reply
  33. Kinu Grove
    2018/02/13 at 15:44

    Thanks for the post. I learned a new short cut 🙂

    Reply
  34. Jason
    2018/02/14 at 16:06

    Thank you! That is the dumbest shortcut ever!

    Reply
  35. Katelyn
    2018/02/14 at 16:57

    THANK YOU!!!

    Reply
  36. Petro, C
    2018/02/16 at 00:16

    Thank you.

    Reply
  37. Susan Asher
    2018/02/18 at 09:22

    Thank you so much! My screen had just gone gray too, but now with Windows Control C it is back to normal. Thank you!!!!

    Reply
  38. Nadeem
    2018/02/21 at 06:03

    Thank you sooo much, saved my life

    Reply
  39. Denis
    2018/02/24 at 16:48

    STRG-WIN-C – what idiot has come off with that key combo? MS bloddy pisses me off. How can i permanently ged rid of this hotkey combo (beside throwing win10 into trash)?

    Reply
  40. Koenraad de Klerk
    2018/02/26 at 06:43

    Thx. You saved my day 🙂 Greetings from Holland

    Reply
  41. Peter Mitchell
    2018/02/28 at 15:11

    Windows+Ctrl+C
    I must have also bumped
    what a stupid combination choice by Windows

    Reply
  42. Mats Svensson
    2018/03/01 at 00:58

    Thanks for this post.
    And fuck Microsoft, for knowing NOTHING about usability.

    Reply
  43. Thais Oliveira
    2018/03/05 at 11:53

    Thank you for this! I had the same problem and no idea on what was going on and how to fix it!

    Reply
  45. Colin
    2018/03/12 at 16:42

    Thanks for this life saver. I was about to run out and buy a new monitor…..pheew!

    Reply
  46. Risky Pathak
    2018/03/18 at 03:05

    Dude. You saved my day. I was doing something very important and suddenly pressing combination of key greyed out my both laptop screen and external monitor. I restarted multiple times, googled a lot, reset display settings but no luck. I was going to reinstall drivers but suddenly I got your this article and just a CTRL + WIN + C and boom. My colors are back…

    Reply
  47. Rebecca Lauer
    2018/03/18 at 11:00

    My phone is grey its like watching a black and white tv ! How do i fix this ?

    Reply
  48. Merish5
    2018/03/19 at 07:19

    Windows key+Ctrl+C worked for me!
    Thank you!

    Reply
  49. n woody
    2018/03/22 at 05:52

    thank you i was getting really frustrated as i couldnt understand what my daughter had done to get it like it

    Reply
  50. Frank
    2018/03/25 at 13:21

    Add me to the list of fat-fingered, grey-screened, desperate windows users! Thanks dude!

    Reply
  51. Mats Svensson
    2018/03/29 at 01:13

    AGAIN!
    It happened again!

    And the only way to fix it, was to find this post.
    Fuck the incompetent assholes at Microsoft, for adding this “feature”.
    Who builds shit like that?

    You should be getting a payment, every time this posts does their job for them.

    Unbelievable!

    Reply
  52. Gemma
    2018/04/01 at 07:30

    Thanks for the answer…..it’s been doing me head in for days!! ha

    Reply
  53. davidcompositesolutionsconz
    2018/04/03 at 02:22

    I hope others find their way to fix the greyed out screen, or my screen has no colour, not sure if I will ever use this feature on purpose, but now I know!!
    Thankyou 🙂

    Reply
  54. Inge Lederer
    2018/04/11 at 04:11

    you saved me today man with this post. now all I need is for you to help me find out why shift isn’t working!!

    Reply
  55. Jonas
    2018/04/23 at 14:06

    Thank you very much Paul. I have had the grey issue for more than 2weeks and did not know what to do until i read your blog. This is very helpful and brilliant

    Reply
  56. Paul Mayo
    2018/04/26 at 08:24

    Very useful, although Win+Ctrl+Print Screen did not work on my Win 10 PC. I went to “Settings” then “Ease of Access” and chose “Colour & High Contrast”. Under “Colour Filters” I chose “apply colour filter = off”. It had been set to “on” and the greyscale filter by some finger action on my part yesterday. It took hours to get to the bottom of this including cable changes etc, so thanks. Paul, UK

    Reply
  57. Jacqui
    2018/04/30 at 07:28

    Wow..you are a life saver 🙂

    Reply
  58. safeya
    2018/05/03 at 11:49

    Thanks alot ..

    Reply
  59. Suzanne
    2018/05/11 at 21:19

    OMGEEEE My 7 months old has a computer fetish and won’t stop messing with my keyboard. Today she jumped on it and the screen turned gray. I thought I would definitely have to buy another…THANK YOU!!!!

    Reply
  60. rox
    2018/05/12 at 18:03

    I agree with everyone. Wow! First time I have ever done that but I had to take off my caps lock button when I hit it over and over again with my little pinky. I need those hot keys tho.

    Reply
  61. Fasha
    2018/05/19 at 23:54

    Thanks a lot!! my screen too turned grey ,Thanks to your article I fixed within a short time!!

    Reply
  62. joelicia
    2018/05/20 at 16:05

    life saver

    Reply
  63. Александар Берчек
    2018/05/29 at 07:53

    Thank you so, so much!

    Reply
  64. Heidi
    2018/05/30 at 19:50

    Thank you! Such a simple fix and I looked at about 12 websites that never mentioned this!

    Reply
  65. johhniee
    2018/06/04 at 12:53

    thenk you

    Reply
  67. Rodney Mason
    2018/07/14 at 15:36

    Thanks this helped a lot my lil girl she’s is one and was playing rolblox and my other daughter had came upstairs and said the computer was gray I was looking crazy like how that happened was looking through everything and like you I’m excellent with computers but glad I found you post very helpful

    Reply
  68. akjglobal
    2018/07/22 at 10:02

    thanks to Sandy, I followed :- go to Settings > Ease of Access > Color and High Contrast > under Color Filters, switch the “Apply Color Filter” button to OFF.
    Reply

    Reply
  69. Stephanie narvaez
    2018/09/04 at 09:41

    THANK YOU!

    Reply
  70. Essy
    2018/09/21 at 00:49

    Thank you life saver.

    Reply
  71. Neha Singh
    2018/09/25 at 03:49

    Thanks a lot.. it worked

    Reply
  72. Kathy
    2018/09/27 at 20:09

    Your article saved my life. THANK YOU SO MUCH

    Reply
  73. Muhammed Arshad 9964071872
    2018/10/12 at 00:54

    Super bro..kudoos from vanimel, nadapuram, kerala,

    Reply
  74. jacklan
    2018/11/03 at 01:10

    thanks so much for your tip . if you want to know what to do than you just type settings and type color filter . yes this color is the right spelling for it .

    Reply
  75. Karl
    2018/11/05 at 11:37

    Thanks been scratching my head
    👍😃

    Reply
  76. Catlady
    2019/01/02 at 16:42

    Whew! Thanks. Now if I could just get my cat to stop walking across my keyboard, or TELL me which keys she stepped on…

    Reply
    • robichaux
      2019/01/07 at 06:34

      My cat once turned on my webcam during a work conference call. I was pacing around the room, dressed in boxers and a T-shirt. Thankfully my male coworker was too busy laughing to be offended.

      Reply
  77. deesselisa
    2019/01/14 at 10:16

    You are the best; thanks for helping me out! And so are cats, robichaux; rofl!

    Reply
  79. Kavitha
    2019/04/24 at 10:40

    Thank you so much, this must be suggested in windows troubleshooter.

    Reply
  81. Ashish
    2021/05/24 at 00:35

    super helpful article

    Reply
  82. wonderladd
    2021/10/12 at 12:42

    Any other ways this might happen? Win+Ctrl+C does nothing. The settings in Color Filters has “Turn on Color Filters” off. It even has the “Allow the shortcut key to toggle filter” as unchecked.

    Reply

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