Use “Shifty” to Take Control of MacOS Night Shift
Apple’sNight Shift mode changes your display to a more orange hue in the evenings, making it a little easier on the eyes. The idea, in part, is that it may help you sleep better (although research doesn’t really support this) if you use a computer before bed.
The problem is that this feature is a bit difficult to set up—you can only set a schedule, turn the feature on until the next sunrise, and adjust the color temperature. But if seeing accurate colors on your display is important—if you’re a designer or video editor, for example—more control over Night Shift can make your life a little easier. If so, try Shifty , a free tool that sits in your menu bar and lets you quickly turn Night Shift on or off, or disable the feature when you open a specific app or website.
To get started , download the latest version and drag it into your Applications folder. Launch Shifty for the first time and a step-by-step wizard will guide you through the permissions. After this, you can start using the application, which basically works in the menu bar. You can click it to immediately turn Night Mode on or off, and also immediately adjust the red offset on the display.
But the real power comes when you want Night Shift to always turn off when you open a specific app or website. For example, if you’re a designer, you might want to see actual colors while Figma is open. To do this, open Figma in your browser and click the Night Shift button. You will see an option to Disable for Figma.com ; click that and you’re done.
From now on, when you open Figma, Night Shift will smoothly turn off. Switch to something else and it will turn back on smoothly. You can do this for any number of apps and websites. This is a great compromise: you don’t have to disable the feature entirely unless it makes your job harder.
In the settings you’ll find a few more options, including whether Shifty should open on boot, as well as the ability to toggleTrue Tone and Night Shift. True Tone, in case you didn’t know, adjusts the colors of your display to better match the ambient light. As with Night Shift, True Tone is a useful feature that can backfire if your work requires color accuracy, so it’s probably worth experimenting with toggling this feature as well. Those of us who prefer to toggle such things without a mouse will be happy to know that Shifty also supports custom keyboard shortcuts.