New screen tint feature discovered in Windows 11 is designed to help with eye strain and even combating migraines | Tech Radar

Overview

News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets

Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more

Details

Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards.

Unlock instant access to exclusive member features.

Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.

New screen tint feature discovered in Windows 11 is designed to help with eye strain and even combating migraines

This isn't a substitute for healthy screen habits, mind

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

There's a hidden Screen Tint feature in a new Windows 11 preview build

It offers a choice of six preset modes designed to deal with various issues

You can also set your own color tint, and its strength, giving you plenty of customization options

Windows 11 is apparently set to get a new accessibility feature, one that can tint the display to make it more suitable and easier on the eyes for reading, or even help guard against a migraine developing.

Windows Latest flagged up a post on X from regular leaker Phantom Of Earth, who uncovered the new Screen Tint feature in a recent preview build of Windows 11, where it's present in the accessibility settings for the OS.

It's essentially a supercharged version of the current Night Light feature, offering a range of six preset colors, and the ability to set your own custom color tint. There's also a slider to adjust the strength of the effect, so you can have a deeper, more intense tint should you wish.

Windows 11 gets an easy way to access dark mode, and a fix for 'flashbangs'

How to choose a laptop or PC screen that won't strain your eyes

Windows 11 tool delivers a simple — but very handy — feature to the desktop

The provided presets include a 'calm amber' tint, which is designed to be helpful for long periods of using your Windows 11 PC to defend against eye strain. (This is the closest tint to the existing Night Light feature, it's worth noting). There's also a 'rose tint', which is the color that aims to reduce migraine triggers as mentioned at the outset, and another warm tint, 'soft yellow', is for helping to mitigate any discomfort when reading text.

At the colder side of the color temperature range, there's 'cool blue' to combat glare sensitivity, while 'gentle green' is for relief from photophobia (light sensitivity). Finally, the 'natural grey' tint is for those who dislike the starker contrast levels of the standard black-and-white look of Windows 11.

Remember, this new feature is not even in testing yet, so the usual rule applies — it could be an idea that Microsoft is toying with, but might abandon. Or at least the implementation could end up different to what we see here, which is a feature hidden in the background that's been enabled by poking around under the hood of Windows 11.

As noted by Windows Latest, which experimented with the Screen Tint ability, it doesn't work properly yet. The results can include screen flickering or the colors being wrongly applied, but that's only to be expected considering the feature isn't official yet.

I don't see any reason why Microsoft wouldn't want to roll this out into testing, though, as it's a handy accessibility feature – and this is an area the company has been very keen on developing ever since Windows 11 was first launched. I particularly like the customization available here, including the option to adjust the intensity of the effect, and the fact that you can mix your own tint using a color picker.

I'm not alone in liking the idea, as you might guess, with one Redditor observing that: "Neat — I'll use this for sure. I fly a lot of 12+ hour overseas flights and I'd very much like to have more control over the overall colour palette when the lights go out. I used f.lux for this for a long time but it hasn't been updated in years and it's too temperamental."

This all plays into Microsoft's current drive to give Windows 11 users more choice and control over the OS, and to generally fix everything that's wrong with the desktop operating system. More broadly, it's good to see deeper options to tailor the nature of a display more to your tastes or needs, beyond a simple reading mode, or the blue light reduction facility, that may be provided with your monitor.

Of course, this kind of tech, while clearly useful, should not be a substitute for keeping healthy screen habits — try not to be stuck staring at any display for too long if you can at all avoid it, and practice the 20/20/20 rule.

➡️ Read our full guide to the best laptops

1. Best overall: Apple Mac Book Air 13-inch M5
2. Best budget: Apple Mac Book Neo
3. Best Windows 11 laptop Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch
4. Best thin and light: Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i
5. Best Ultrabook Asus Zenbook S 16

Follow Tech Radar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

And of course, you can also follow Tech Radar on You Tube and Tik Tok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on Whats App too.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for Tech Radar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

1 Samsung's Galaxy phones could be getting a big camera redesign to facilitate Mag Safe-style charging — here are 4 ways they could look different

2I compared Chat GPT Images 2.0 and Google’s Nano Banana 2 using real-world prompts — from portraits to product shots — and the AI image generator that came out on top genuinely surprised me

3 The 4 best vacuum cleaners for seasonal allergies, recommended by a home tech expert — beat hayfever with powerful suction, HEPA filters, and sealed dust bags

4 New i OS 26.4 emojis ranked by popularity — from Distorted Face to Hairy Creature

5'A new era begins': INEOS Cycling signs up Netcompany for major AI push, new title sponsor

Tech Radar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Key Takeaways

• News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets
• Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more
• Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards
• Unlock instant access to exclusive member features
• Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards