Frequently asked questions

FakeDesktops is a prank site. Pick a screenshot of someone else's computer, open it fullscreen, and hand the device over. The picture covers the screen and the cursor still moves. Share a desktop with its link, or browse the collection and launch a random one.

Open Upload and send one still screenshot: PNG, JPEG, or WebP. Animated images are turned away. Add a short description, choose an operating system, pick at least one tag from the list, and tick the agreement. You can upload without an account. Those uploads, and uploads from an account that is not both verified and trusted, stay hidden until a person approves them. A verified account that an admin has marked trusted can publish immediately when approval is required. If the site is set to skip approval, a finished upload is published. Leave out names, email addresses, faces, documents, and passwords. Joke error messages and blue screens are fine. Fake support numbers, ransomware, and phishing pages are not. The how-to-screenshot page explains how to capture the whole screen first.

The upload form lists the operating systems the site currently accepts, including recent and classic Windows, macOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux Mint, Debian, other Linux, ChromeOS, Amiga Workbench and AmigaOS, and Other. The aspect ratio is measured from the picture. Sizes within 1.5% of a common screen shape use that label, such as 16:9, 16:10, 21:9, 32:9, 4:3, or 5:4, including portrait. Anything else is kept as a two-decimal ratio such as 2.16:1. The home page can filter by those common ratios or by Other.

Open a desktop and click the picture or Play, or click a thumbnail on the home page. The screenshot fills the screen on black. There is no button, spinner, or ad, and the cursor stays visible. Press Escape, double-click, or triple-tap the same corner on a touch screen to leave. A single tap elsewhere does nothing. On iPhone, the page covers the screen in place; adding FakeDesktops to the Home Screen is the way to get a true fullscreen window.

The site is for novelty and pranks, not for fraud, phishing, fake tech support, or extortion. If you upload a screenshot, you confirm you have the right to share it and that it has no private information. You grant FakeDesktops a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, display, and share that image, including in link previews. Trademarks and the software in a screenshot still belong to their owners. When a desktop shows a credit and a licence, follow that licence. To report copyright, use Report on the desktop or the contact address on the privacy page. The full rules are on the terms page.

New uploads keep one full-size original and one small thumbnail for the grid. PNG and JPEG are stored as lossless WebP, so the pixels are not thrown away. A still WebP that is already upright is kept without recompressing the picture; camera metadata is removed. The fullscreen view loads that original. An admin can turn on lossy compression, which encodes the original once at the chosen quality. That option is off unless it has been turned on.

Use the feedback page for a bug, a note, or a desktop that should come down. You can also use Report on a desktop for offensive content, personal information, copyright, or spam. Questions and takedown requests can go to the contact address on the privacy page.