Matrix Screensaver_
Preset modes
Keyboard & mouse
Guide — digital rain on any screen in 30 seconds
Classic green, dense Operator, red Nightmare, blue binary Byte Storm, slow Ghost, multicolour Glitch, amber Terminal or the Rain clock. Keys 1–8.
Type a word or name in the message box. Each letter flashes white when a stream falls through it, then fades back into the rain.
Change speed, font size, density, trail length, glow and slant, the colour and the characters: katakana, binary, hex, Greek, code symbols and more.
Press Enter fullscreen, double-click the rain or press F. The screen stays awake while it runs.
Copy link keeps every setting, including your message. Save as wallpaper downloads the current frame as a PNG.
What is in here
- Mirrored
- Half-width katakana drawn mirrored, mixed with digits and symbols
- Heads
- Each stream is led by a bright white character
- Flicker
- Characters keep changing inside the trail
- Depth
- Dimmer, slower columns behind brighter, faster ones
The current time is drawn out of falling code: big digits made of flickering characters that light up as the streams pass. Turn on seconds for a live countdown feel.
A name for a party screen, a team name on an office TV, or a greeting for a stream. Up to 40 characters, saved in the share link.
- Mouse
- The rain lights up around the pointer
- Pause
- Space freezes the frame, for a screenshot or wallpaper
The Matrix digital rain, as a free screensaver in your browser
The digital rain, also called Matrix code rain, is the green falling code from the opening of The Matrix (1999). Columns of glowing characters run down a black screen, each led by a brighter character, with the symbols behind it flickering and fading. This page recreates that look with HTML5 Canvas so it runs in any modern browser: as a screensaver, a background on a second monitor or TV, or a backdrop for a party or a live stream. There is nothing to download.
What the characters are
The code in the film is made mostly of half-width katakana, shown as mirror images, mixed with Latin letters and numbers. The film's production designer Simon Whiteley has said in interviews that he drew the characters from Japanese cookbooks. The Matrix mix and Katakana sets here use the same kind of half-width katakana, with mirroring switched on by default. Other sets give a different feel: binary for a data-centre look, hex and code symbols for a programmer's screen, Greek letters, or abstract symbols.
How the effect is made
The screen is a grid of character cells. Every column has a stream with its own speed and length. When the head of a stream moves into a cell, that cell gets a new random character; the head is drawn in white, the next character in a pale tint and the rest of the trail in the main colour, fading towards the tail. Random cells keep changing even inside a trail, which gives the restless flicker. All characters are drawn once into an off-screen sheet and copied from there, so even hundreds of columns run smoothly, and the glow is a blurred copy of the frame added on top.
Use it as a screensaver, wallpaper or TV display
Choose a preset and press Enter fullscreen. On a computer it fills the screen and the page asks the browser to keep the display awake. On a smart TV, open the page in the TV's browser, or cast or connect a laptop. For a still wallpaper, pause the rain at a good moment and press Save as wallpaper; the PNG is saved at the resolution of your screen. The page does not install itself as a system screensaver; open it whenever you want the rain.
Ideas
- Office or event screen: the rain clock on a TV, or the company or event name as the hidden message.
- Streaming: a fullscreen browser window as a background or "starting soon" scene, with your channel name in the rain.
- Parties: a guest's name hidden in the code, in green or multicolour Glitch mode.
- Focus: the slow Ghost preset makes a calm, low-contrast background.
Works everywhere, privately
It runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebook, iPhone, iPad and Android. Everything is drawn on your device; your message and settings are only stored in your browser and in the share link you choose to copy. No account, no ads, no watermark.
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