What to Put on Your Second Monitor
Most people end up putting YouTube on their second monitor. It seems like a good idea — something interesting running in the background while you work. It never stays in the background. Fifteen minutes later you're watching a documentary about the Roman Empire and your actual work is paused.
Museum Drift
400,000+ artworks from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, cycling through your screen automatically. No ads. Nothing designed to pull your attention away.
Put It on Your Second Monitor — FreeNo account. No download. Opens in your browser.
The problem with YouTube on a second screen
YouTube is engineered to keep you watching. The autoplay, the thumbnail design, the recommendation algorithm — all of it exists to maximize the time you spend on YouTube. That's fine when you're watching YouTube. It's a disaster when it's supposed to be background noise.
News sites have the same problem. Financial tickers, live blogs, breaking alerts — all of it is designed to make you look. Neither belongs on a screen you're working next to.
Why art actually works
Art doesn't demand your attention. You can look at a painting for three seconds or three minutes. When you glance up and see a 17th-century Dutch still life or an ancient Egyptian relief panel, you get a small moment of something interesting — and then you look back at your work. It doesn't escalate. There's no autoplay leading you somewhere else.
A lot of people who work from home or have a home office use art on a second screen specifically because it makes the space feel better, without the distraction cost. It's the same reason offices hang paintings on walls instead of mounting TVs.
What Museum Drift shows you
Museum Drift pulls from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's open access collection — over 400,000 public domain works that The Met has made freely available. That includes paintings, sculpture, drawings, ancient artifacts, arms and armor, tapestries, prints, and more. Everything from a Rembrandt portrait to a 3,000-year-old Egyptian figurine.
The app cycles through them automatically. You can filter by department if you want to see only European paintings, or only Asian art, or you can leave it on random. Each piece shows the title, artist, date, and a link to the full Met entry if you want to learn more. It never repeats something you've already seen.
How to set it up
Open museumdrift.com/drift in your browser, then drag the window to your second monitor and maximize it. That's literally it — no account, no download, no setup. If you want it to move more slowly, drag the speed slider down. If you want it even larger and slower, the slow display mode fills the screen with one image at a time.
If you leave it open, it will keep running. If you close the tab and come back, it remembers what you've seen and picks up from where it left off.
Other things people put on their second monitor
For comparison — here's what actually works on a second screen, and what doesn't:
✓ Art displays (Museum Drift)
Interesting without demanding attention. Passive by design.
✓ Nature screensavers / Fireplace videos
Calm, non-demanding. Good option. Less interesting over time.
✗ YouTube
Narrows to "one more video" faster than you'd expect.
✗ News / social media feeds
Designed to provoke a reaction. Does the opposite of calm your workspace.
Common questions
Does it cost anything?
No. Museum Drift is completely free. The artwork is from The Met's Open Access collection — all public domain, licensed CC0 1.0 Universal. No subscription, no sign-up.
Does it need a fast connection?
A normal home internet connection handles it fine. Images load from The Met's servers. If your connection is slow, just drag the speed slider down so you're not loading new images as frequently.
Can I choose what type of art it shows?
Yes. You can filter by department — European paintings, Egyptian art, Asian art, Greek and Roman sculpture, medieval art, arms and armor, American art, and more.
Will it repeat the same artworks?
No. It tracks everything you've seen in your browser and won't show it again. Given the collection is 400,000+ works, you'd run it for years before running out.
Give your second monitor something worth looking at
Open Museum DriftFree. No account. Works in any browser.