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Font Smoothing Adjuster
Open source app to adjust font smoothing settings in Big Sur
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Alastair Byrne

Font Smoothing Adjuster - Open source app to adjust font smoothing settings in Big Sur

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macOS Big Sur removed the option of disabling font smoothing in System Preferences. This tiny, free, open source app lets you easily adjust the level of font smoothing on your Mac, or disable it altogether, without needing to use a terminal.

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Jordan Murkin
I never realised I needed this until I saw the comparison. The app was simple to install and couldn't be easier to use.
Alastair Byrne
Maker
macOS Big Sur uses default font smoothing settings that make your fonts blurrier, bolder and mess with carefully designed character shapes. As of Big Sur, there is now also no way to change this through System Preferences. This annoyed us, so we made a tiny app that lets you easily choose what level of font smoothing you would like, or disable it altogether, even for people who are not comfortable using a terminal. This free and open source app is available for download at fontsmoothingadjuster.com, and the site also has interactive comparisons to help you see the difference between the font smoothing options. We hope you find it useful!
Tine David
@alastair_byrne Yayyy! I never thought I needed this!
James Stevenson
With the latest Big Sur 11.3 update, Apple have turned on font smoothing is forced on in Safari and Mail, even if using your app to disable it. Yuck! What are they thinking? Steve Jobs would be turning in his grave! Will you be updating the app for this, by any chance? By the way, your app is much easier than using the terminal command - thank you!
Alastair Byrne
Maker
@james_stevenson Hi James, thank you for your kind words, and sorry for the late reply on this. I've done a big write-up on this specific issue here: https://github.com/bouncetechnol... The TL;DR is that unfortunately there's a bug in the macOS's current version of WebKit, the browser engine that backs Safari, Mail and any Mac app that uses native WebKit views. The good news is that this issue has now been patched in the latest versions of WebKit. The bad news is that it will probably be a while before Apple ships the patched version of WebKit in an update to macOS, as it takes time for versions of WebKit to filter through to Apple releases. If we figure out any decent workarounds in the meantime I'll post an update here. Thanks!