Windows 10 includes Color Filters as part of the Ease of Access system. They improve usability of the operating system for people with various vision issues. Color filters work at the system level, so all installed software including third-party apps and built-in Windows apps will follow them. You can enable color filters with a hotkey.
The Color Filters feature we are going to use today is available in Windows 10 starting with build 16215. Tip: See how to find the Windows 10 build number you are running.
The available colors filters in Windows 10 are as follows.
- Greyscale
- Invert
- Greyscale Inverted
- Deuteranopia
- Protanopia
- Tritanopia
There is a special hotkey you can use to enable or disable color filters in Windows 10. Press the Win + Ctrl + C shortcut keys together on your keyboard. This sequence will enable or disable (toggle) the color filter set by default. Out of the box, Windows 10 is using the greyscale filter.
You can use the mentioned Win + Ctrl + C hotkey to toggle the color filter.
Starting with Windows 10 build 17083, you can enable or disable the hotkey. There is a special option in Settings, which was added to help reduce accidental pressing of the hotkey. Also, it can be enabled or disable with a Registry tweak. Let's review both methods.
To enable the Color Filters hotkey in Windows 10, do the following.
- Open the Settings app.
- Go to Ease of Access -> Color filters.
- On the right, enable the option Allow the shortcut key to toggle filter on or off.
- The Colors Filters hotkey will be enabled in Windows 10.
You are done.
To disable the hotkey, turn off the mentioned option "Allow the shortcut key to toggle filter on or off".
Alternatively, you can apply a Registry tweak. Here is how it can be done.
Enable or disable the Color Filters hotkey with a Registry tweak
- Open the Registry Editor app.
- Go to the following Registry key.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ColorFiltering
See how to go to a Registry key with one click.
- On the right, modify or create a new 32-Bit DWORD value HotkeyEnabled.
Note: Even if you are running 64-bit Windows you must still create a 32-bit DWORD value.
Set its value data to 1 to enable the feature. A value data of 0 will disable it.
- To make the changes done by the Registry tweak take effect, you need to sign out and sign in again to your user account.
To save your time, you can download the following ready-to-use Registry files:
That's it.
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My windows doesn’t have this option nor does the key exist in the registry, adding it does nothing as well.
Which build you are running?
I couldn’t find the ColorFiltering folder at specified address in my regedit.
Search tool had found it for me (there are 2 other options it found, too).
I added the option myself.
I looked and couldn’t find the checkbox option in my settings.
I logged out and logged back in (very important)
I looked again and still no checkbox. But now I noticed a n additional bit of text that says that “Ctrl+Win+C” toggles it.
The keyboard shortcut works. That’s perfect for me.