How to Fix Screen Burn-In and Image Retention

What people call burn-in is usually one of two things. Image retention is temporary — a faint ghost of a static element like a keyboard, logo, or status bar that lingers after it's been on screen a long time. It often fades on its own and almost always responds to a pixel-refresh routine.

Permanent burn-in is physical: the pixels that displayed the static element have aged unevenly and can't be restored by software. The good news is that a lot of what looks alarming is actually retention, so it's worth running a fixer before assuming the worst.

A burn-in fixer rapidly cycles every pixel through the full range of colors and brightness levels. This exercises the sub-pixels that were stuck showing one thing, evening out their state and fading the retained image.

On OLED and AMOLED panels, where each pixel makes its own light, this is the standard mitigation. On LCDs the same color cycling helps unstick pixels that are lodged on one color. It's the same idea behind the pixel-refresher many TVs run automatically.

The tool runs fullscreen and keeps your screen awake so you can leave it going.

Retention builds up from static content left on screen for hours. Lowering brightness, using a screen timeout, hiding persistent bars, and enabling any built-in pixel-shift or screen-saver features all reduce the risk.

If a fix session clears the ghost, it was retention and you're fine. If a faint mark survives long runs across several attempts, it's likely permanent burn-in that software can't repair — though keeping brightness lower can stop it from getting worse.