OLED burn-in test
Full-screen solid colours, gradients, and a menu bar check. It runs in your browser, with nothing to install.
Start the test
Choose a pattern. It fills the whole screen. Move through the patterns with the arrow keys or the space bar, and press Esc to exit. On a phone or tablet, tap the right side of the screen for the next pattern and the left side to go back.
| Next pattern | → ↓ Space, or tap the right side |
|---|---|
| Previous pattern | ← ↑, or tap the left side |
| Exit | Esc, or the Exit button |
White 1 of 10
Arrows or tap to change. Esc to exit.
How to run the test
- Clean the screen. Dust and smudges can look like marks on a flat colour.
- Set the brightness to the level you normally use. Then you judge the screen as you see it every day.
- On a Mac with two displays, open this page on the display you want to check. Full screen fills the display the browser window is on.
- Start with white, then step through every pattern. Spend a few seconds on each. Look at the top strip where the menu bar sits, the bottom where the Dock sits, and the corners.
In the browser, the pattern covers the macOS menu bar and the Dock, so you see the pixels under them. On iPhone, Safari does not allow a web page to go full screen, so the pattern fills the browser window instead.
How to read the result
On a healthy panel, each solid colour looks the same from edge to edge. On the ramps, the change from dark to light, or from colour to colour, is smooth.
Wear shows as a shape that does not belong in the pattern. It is usually slightly darker than the area around it, or a slightly different colour. Its outline often matches something that sat in the same place for a long time: a strip across the top, a Dock-shaped band at the bottom, a logo in a corner, or the edges of a window you keep in one place.
- You see nothing on any pattern. Good. There is no visible wear at this brightness.
- You see a shape, and it fades after a few minutes of other content. That is temporary image retention.
- You see the same shape on several colours, and it is still there the next day. Treat that as burn-in.
- You see a single dot that stays one colour, or stays lit on black. That is a stuck or dead pixel, which is a different fault.
The menu bar check is a plain 50% grey field with two small marks at the left and right edges. The marks sit roughly where the bottom of the menu bar is on a display without a notch. If the strip above the marks looks different from the grey below them, the menu bar has left a mark. Check the same strip on white and on the colours to confirm it.
Burn-in and image retention are not the same
LG's own support pages draw the line clearly. Image retention is an image that "sticks" on the screen after the content changes, usually a faint ghost that fades. Burn-in is retention that lasts much longer and stays visible over other content (LG support).
So one test that shows a ghost does not mean the panel is damaged. Show varied content for a while, let the display run its care routine, and test again. We explain the difference in more detail in OLED burn-in vs image retention.
Why the menu bar matters on an OLED monitor
Display makers name static interface elements as the cause. LG says that if static elements such as the Windows taskbar, icons, or game menus stay on screen for a long time, the pixels under them may develop image retention (LG OLED monitor support). ASUS links burn-in to showing the same static, high-contrast image for a long time, and recommends that owners of its OLED laptops auto-hide the Windows taskbar (ASUS support).
On a Mac, the menu bar is that element. It sits in the same strip of pixels whenever the Mac is on, and the Apple menu, the app menus, and the clock stay in almost the same places. Full-screen apps hide it only while they are in front. The built-in auto-hide setting applies to every display at once, and the bar comes back at full brightness when you move the pointer to the top. Read more in does the Mac menu bar cause OLED burn-in.
What to do if you see a mark
- Let the monitor run its panel care. Most OLED monitors have a routine for this. On LG OLED monitors it is called Image Cleaning, and LG says it runs by itself when the monitor goes into power-saving mode or turns off, after more than four hours of use since the last clean (LG OLED monitor support). Check your monitor's manual for its own name and schedule.
- Test again the next day. If the mark is gone, it was retention.
- Reduce the static content that caused it. Let the display sleep when you step away, use a dark wallpaper, and move or hide elements that never change. Our OLED burn-in prevention habits for Mac covers the settings.
- Hide the menu bar on the OLED display. macOS cannot do this for one display only. TuckBar is a free app that does, and your other displays keep their menu bar. See how to hide the menu bar on an external OLED monitor only.
About the patterns
- White, red, green, blue: each colour at full level, so you can see wear in one colour of subpixel.
- 50% grey is half the signal level, #808080.
- 18% grey gives 18% of the light of white, the photographer's middle grey. In sRGB that is #767676.
- Black turns every OLED pixel off. It is for stuck pixels, not for burn-in.
- Grey ramp and colour ramp sweep across the screen, so a mark shows as a break in a smooth change.
This test runs entirely in your browser. It sends nothing and stores nothing. It cannot measure wear: it shows flat fields so that your eyes can find it.
Sources
- LG, LG TV: troubleshooting image burn-in. Checked September 2026.
- LG, How to fix lines or marks on your LG OLED monitor using Image Cleaning. Checked September 2026.
- ASUS, [Notebook] The related settings of screen saver/maintenance. Checked September 2026.
If your OLED sits beside a Mac all day, the menu bar is the part of the screen that never changes. TuckBar hides it on the displays you choose.
Get TuckBar — free on the Mac App Store