RealVNC Connect's Screen Blanking feature allows you to blank the screens of your devices when you connect to them. This allows you to control to a remote computer without people in the vicinity seeing what you're doing.
Please note, screen blanking does not lock the computer, log out the user, or power down the display. Instead, it simply hides the content on the remote computer’s screen.
From RealVNC Server 7.18.0/RealVNC Connect v8.5.0, team admins can also configure a custom image to display on the blanked screen instead of a plain black screen, along with the connecting user's username and IP address. This makes it clear to anyone near the remote computer that a session is in progress and who is controlling it.
How do I enable Screen Blanking?
Open RealVNC Server's Options > Privacy page and turn on Blank screen when users are connected.
Once enabled, ensure that RealVNC Server's Users & Permissions are also configured to allow screen blanking:
How do I show a custom image and the connecting user's details on the blanked screen?
This is a Windows-only feature, configured by a team admin via a server-side parameter.
This is also set in RealVNC Server's Options > Privacy page
- Turn on Blank screen while users are connected, if it isn't already.
- Tick Use custom blank screen.
- Tick Show connection details to display the connecting user's username and IP address on the blanked screen.
- In the Blank image field, enter the full path to your image file, e.g.
"C:\Users\user\Pictures\testimage.jpg". The image must be a JPEG file. - Click Apply to save your changes.
Note: Because this relies on manual verification of the on-screen output, it should be tested on your target hardware before rolling out to users.
Which operating systems support Screen Blanking?
Screen blanking is supported on Windows 10 (version 2004 and later), Windows 11 and macOS Tahoe 26.
The custom image and connecting-user display is available on Windows only.
It is not currently possible to blank the screens of remote computers running Linux.
How long does Screen Blanking last for?
Screen blanking is active whenever there is a RealVNC Viewer connected.
Please note that there are some known issues that affect screen blanking, depending on the operating system, which are listed below.
Windows
- The mouse cursor is visible on the RealVNC Server computer's display/monitor
- When clicked, some menu items on system tray icons are briefly visible on the RealVNC Server computer's display/monitor
- Screen blanking is interrupted when using Windows' Desktop Peek feature
- Screen blanking is interrupted when hovering on an application's taskbar thumbnail
macOS
- Screen blanking will not work if you log out of or lock the user account on the macOS device, and screen blanking will be stopped until a user logs in again. This is due to an Apple limitation.
How do I know if Screen Blanking is enabled?
When a RealVNC Viewer is connected to RealVNC Server and screen blanking is enabled, RealVNC Server will display a privacy badge on its icon in the system tray, next to the clock. Look for this icon:
If a custom image has been configured, this will also be visible on the remote screen itself (along with the connecting user's name and IP), so there's no ambiguity that a session is active.
What if I can’t get Screen Blanking to work?
Contact our support team here, including a debug server log.
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