If you find LG's webOS menu automatically appearing on your TV at startup annoying, or if you are using an external media player, here is how to disable it. You can also reduce promotional content.
For years, all LG Smart TVs have been powered by the company's own operating system, webOS.
Despite major changes to the user interface over the years, LG has set up its TVs to persistently pull up the webOS menu upon starting up the TV, sometimes even if you wake the TV with HDMI CEC via one of the HDMI inputs connected to, for example, an Apple TV 4K or PS5.
You then have to either grab the LG remote to close the menu or wait for it to disappear after a while.
How to disable the auto-start menu
Luckily, it is easy to prevent the webOS menu from appearing after turning on the TV. The steps may differ slightly depending on the generation of your LG OLED, "NanoCell" LCD or "QNED" LCD TV.
Here's how:
Go to Settings -> General -> System -> Additional Settings - > Home Settings -> Power On Screen -> Select 'Recent Input' (or disable 'Home Auto Launch' on older models)
When you turn on your LG Smart TV after disabling this option, the last used input screen will now be displayed.
How the menu looks on a 2024 LG TV. Photo: FlatpanelsHD
Remove sponsored content
While you are there, you might also want to turn off 'Home Promotion' to remove at least some of the sponsored content from the webOS homescreen.
It is not possible to remove all ads from webOS, though.
You might also want to disable these. Photo: FlatpanelsHD