OpenMacScreenShade
A tiny open-source screen dimmer for macOS
Start new thread
ducksauce anyway

OpenMacScreenShade - A tiny open-source screen dimmer for macOS

by•
OpenMacShade is a tiny macOS menu bar app that makes your screen appear darker using only a click-through black overlay. Unlike feature-heavy display tools, it does not use hardware brightness control, DDC/CI, gamma changes, private APIs, permissions, telemetry, or network access. It is open source and intentionally simple: one slider, one overlay, nothing else.

Add a comment

Replies

Best
ducksauce anyway
Maker
📌
Hi Product Hunt! I built OpenMacShade because I wanted a very small way to make my Mac mini’s external display look darker without using a large monitor-control utility. OpenMacShade is intentionally simple: it is a macOS menu bar app with one slider, and it dims the screen using only a click-through black overlay. It does not use DDC/CI, gamma changes, private APIs, system permissions, telemetry, or network access. This is an early open-source release, currently tested on my Mac mini running macOS 15. I would especially appreciate feedback from MacBook, Apple Silicon, and multi-display users. The source code and build instructions are available on GitHub. Thanks for checking it out!