Apple’s Night Shift mode changes your display to a more orange-y tone in the evenings, which can make things a little easier on the eyes. The idea, in part, is that this can help you get better sleep (though the research doesn’t really support it) if you use your computer before bed.
The trouble is that this feature is a little hard to configure—you can only configure a schedule, toggle the feature to stay on until the next sunrise, and adjust the color temperature. But if seeing accurate colors on your display is important—for example, if you’re a designer or video editor—having more control over Night Shift might make your life a little easier. If so, check out Shifty, a free tool that lives in your menu bar and allows you to quickly toggle Night Shift on or off, or to disable the feature when a particular application or website is open.
To get started, download the latest release and drag it to your Applications folder. Start Shifty for the first time and a step-by-step wizard will guide you through permissions. After that, you can start using the application, which primarily works in the menu bar. You can click it to immediately turn Night Shift on or off, as well as immediately adjust how red-shifted your display is.
But the real power comes if you want Night Shift to always turn off when you open a particular application or website. For example, if you’re a designer you might want to see true colors while Figma is open. To do so, open Figma in your browser then click the Night Shift button. You’ll see an option to Disable for Figma.com; click that and you’re set.
From now on, when you open Figma, Night Shift will gently turn off. Switch to doing something else and it will gently turn on again. You can do this for as many applications and websites as you like. This is a great compromise: you don’t need to disable the feature altogether, only when it makes your work harder to do.
In the settings you’ll find a few more options, including whether Shifty should open on boot-up and the ability to toggle True Tone as well as Night Shift. True Tone, if you didn’t know, adjusts the colors of your display to better match the ambient lighting around you. As with Night Shift, True Tone is a useful feature that could backfire if your job requires color accuracy, so it’s probably worth experimenting with toggling that feature as well. Those of us who prefer toggling such things without the mouse will be happy to know Shifty also supports custom keyboard shortcuts.
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