Keep your screen awake in Chrome

Support at a glance

No flags, no permissions prompt, nothing in chrome://flags to enable — the API is on by default. Check your version under Menu → Help → About Google Chrome.

Using the tool in Chrome

Open the tool, pick a duration, tap the button. Chrome asks the OS to hold a screen wake lock for this tab; the lock releases automatically if you hide the tab or minimize the window, and the tool reacquires it when you come back.

Chrome-specific things that can interfere

• Battery Saver (chrome://settings/performance). When Chrome's Battery Saver is active, wake-lock requests can be refused or dropped — you'll see the tool report a block. Plug in or turn Battery Saver off.
• Memory Saver. Chrome discards background tabs to free memory; a discarded tab loses its wake lock. In practice this only happens while the tab is hidden — where the lock can't hold anyway — so it rarely matters. The active tab is never discarded.
• Picture-in-Picture detours. Moving a video to PiP hides the original page; if your goal is keeping the screen on for a video, leave the page visible (or just play the video — media playback holds its own wake lock).

Web tool vs. a “keep awake” Chrome extension

Extensions such as the classic Keep Awake use Chrome's privileged power API and can hold the screen even with the browser window hidden — a genuine advantage. The trade-offs: installing an extension grants it broad permissions, it runs in the background permanently, and managed/work browsers often block extensions entirely. For “keep the screen on while this tab is open” — the overwhelmingly common case — a web page is the lighter and safer option.