Night light helps you protect your eyes from the blue light emitted by your computer's screen. Here's how to enable/disable it on Windows 10 and 11.

Night light has been a part of Windows' display settings for a long time now. First introduced in the Creators Update, night light helps you fall asleep at night by protecting your eyes from the blue light emitted by your computer's display.

If you often find yourself staring at a screen late at night with eye strain and no sleep, here's how to enable and configure night light settings on Windows 10 and 11 to ensure working continuously for prolonged periods doesn't interfere with your sleeping schedule.

To turn on night light on Windows, head over to Settings by pressing Win + I. Then, click System and from the left sidebar, select Display. You can easily find the option to turn on the night light at first glance.

Simply toggle the night light button to enable it. Enabling the night light this way will turn it on, but depending on the current time, your screen colors may or may not get warmer. Either way, you'll need to modify some settings to tweak them to your comfort. We'll cover these settings in detail in the next section.

The interface is a bit different for Windows 10 and 11 but the options and labels are still the same. The steps mentioned above work just fine on both Windows versions.

If you want to quickly turn on the night light irrespective of the current time, click on the Notifications icon located on the bottom-right of the taskbar. Then, click on Night Light to quickly trigger the blue light filtering feature.

If you can't find the button to enable night light on Windows 11, click on Edit (the Pencil icon) and select Add. Now, from the list of available options, select Night Light and click Done to add the option to the quick settings.

If the night light doesn't work on your computer, consider following our detailed guide on fixing night light on Windows.

Windows allows you to change the strength and schedule of the blue light filter. To do that, open the Settings window and head over to System > Display. On Windows 10, click the Night light settings option located right under the toggle button.

Windows 11 users can click anywhere inside the Night light box to view night light settings.

The settings are more or less the same for both Windows versions; only the option labels are different.

The first button is labeled Turn on now and will enable night light on your system. It works the same as the night light option found in the taskbar quick settings. Enabling night light using this option will turn on the blue light filter irrespective of the current time.

Moving on, you'll be presented with a slider that allows you to control the strength of the filter. Selecting a higher value will make your screen colors warmer. You can play around with this setting and see what works the best for you.

Ideally, you should choose a value that doesn't interfere with your work and still helps you protect your eyes from blue light. Somewhere around 30 to 40 would be the best and most comfortable setting for most people.

If you want to set your own hours for the filter, you can do so using the Schedule night light option. This setting allows you to specify a time during which you want to enable the blue light filter. Windows will toggle night light automatically for you when the period starts and ends.

To begin, enable Schedule night light. You can either set hours manually or use the more convenient option that enables night light at sunset and disables it at sunrise. Remember though, that this option requires you to enable location services on your device. If you don't want to turn location services on, you can manually set the sunrise and sunset hours.

To do that, use the Turn on and Turn off fields to specify a range during which you'd like to enable the night light. The best time to turn the night light on is a few hours before your sleep time.

When you've set the on and off hours, head back to Display settings and enable night light by toggling the option on. Windows will now automatically enable night light when the hours start and disable it when the period ends.

To learn more about the positive effects of night light, you'll first need to know how blue light affects our sleeping schedule. Blue light, usually emitted by the sun and other screen devices, stimulates our body to wake up by blocking the production of Melatonin, a hormone that helps you fall asleep.

Staring at a screen during or before your sleep time can seriously hamper your sleep. The night light feature acts as a blue light filter for your screen and replaces vibrant and bright colors with warmer color tones like the shades of orange and red.

Another feature similar to night light is dark mode. Dark mode replaces the default light theme with a dark theme having white text on a black background instead of the other way round.

Although dark mode can help you decrease blue light exposure to some extent, it's not as effective as night light. Combining both of these display modes can help prevent eye strain caused by prolonged exposure to bright screens.

The night light feature on Windows is extremely easy to access (and use) in case you need it. You can even schedule it to enable the filter for a few hours a day and disable it automatically when the hours end.

Not only Windows, but other operating systems also offer similar features to reduce the effect of blue light on users' eyes. If yours doesn't have one, don't fret as you can use other techniques to keep your eyes safe. You can also monitor your screen usage and try to limit it to prevent eye strain.

Deepesh is the Section Editor for Linux at MUO. He has a degree in Computer Applications and has been writing about technology for over five years. When not penning down informational guides on Linux, Windows, or Gaming, you can find him secluded in a corner reading books, playing FPS games, or searching for new hobbies to take up, only to quit and find a new one again.

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