The Sulawesi Masked Owl is a nocturnal owl with a pale grey, heart-shaped facial disc edged in rufous. It is thought to hunt small animals over open farmland and forest edges.
The male has dark grey upperparts marked with white and pale chestnut, and pale buff underparts. Its greyish-white facial disc has a reddish-brown rim; females are darker and more heavily spotted below.
It is nocturnal and is thought to take small vertebrates such as rats and shrews. It hunts over cultivated fields and forest edges. A field note reports a bird using a coastal cave in northeastern Sulawesi as a roost; tree-hole and coconut-palm roosts are also reported.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.