How to Turn On Night Shift on a Mac (and Off Again)
By Jack RichardsFounder, Sundown
To turn on Night Shift on a Mac, open the Apple menu, choose System Settings (or System Preferences), click Displays, then click Night Shift. From there you can switch it on by hand, schedule it from sunset to sunrise, or set your own hours. The same panel is where you turn it off again.
A lot of people search for "night mode" when they mean Night Shift, so this guide uses both names. It follows Apple's support page for Night Shift on the Mac step by step, and it works the same way on a MacBook as on any other Mac that supports the feature.
How to Turn On Night Shift on a Mac
Night Shift lives in the Displays section of System Settings, and you can get there in three steps.
- From the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen, choose System Settings, which is called System Preferences on some Macs.
- Click Displays.
- Click Night Shift.
From the Night Shift panel you can switch it on by hand. That is an easy way to try it tonight without setting a schedule.
If you do not see Night Shift, your Mac may not support it. The option is available only on Macs introduced in 2012 or later and Mac Pro computers introduced in 2013 or later, running macOS Sierra 10.12.4 or later.
How to Schedule Night Shift on a Mac
In the same Night Shift panel you can either schedule Night Shift to turn on automatically from sunset until sunrise, or create a custom schedule with your own times.
The sunset schedule is the hands-off choice, because Night Shift uses your Mac's clock and geolocation to work out when it is sunset where you are, shifts the display's colours to the warmer end of the spectrum after that, and returns the display to its regular settings in the morning.
A custom schedule suits you better if your evenings do not follow the sun, for example if you work late in summer when sunset comes after your wind-down has started, or if you want the change at the same clock time all year.
How to Turn Off Night Shift (Night Mode) on a Mac or MacBook
To turn off Night Shift, go back to Apple menu, System Settings (or System Preferences), Displays, Night Shift, and switch it off there.
If you have a schedule set, switching Night Shift off by hand lasts until sunrise or the scheduled time.
There is one more thing people call night mode. If your Appearance setting is set to Auto, your Mac switches from light to dark appearance based on the Night Shift schedule you set, so when Night Shift is on, the appearance is dark.
How to Make Night Shift More or Less Warm
When Night Shift is on, the Night Shift panel lets you make the colour temperature more or less warm. Warmer colour temperatures show more yellow and less blue.
The setting runs only from less warm to more warm and gives no number. If the screen looks too yellow to work at, set it toward less warm, and if it still looks white in the evening, set it toward more warm. On an external display, Apple says Night Shift performance depends on the characteristics of the display.
What Night Shift Changes, and What It Does Not
Night Shift changes the colour of the light your screen gives off, moving it toward the warmer, yellower end with less blue. It is a colour setting. For a comparison, our guide to Dark Mode vs Night Shift vs True Tone goes through what each one does.
Apple explains the feature in terms of evening blue light and circadian rhythms. The studies we cite on this topic are collected on our science page, and this guide makes no claim about sleep either way. What Night Shift does, and what you can check with your own eyes, is make the screen warmer.
An Example Evening in Sundown
Night Shift's warmth runs only from less warm to more warm. Sundown, our Mac app, sets the screen's warmth from ordinary daytime white down to a deep red, in small steps, so you can step the evening warmer as it goes on.
Here is one example of what that can look like. Treat it as a starting point you can change, because the numbers are yours to pick.
| When | Example colour temperature Sundown emits |
|---|---|
| After sunset | e.g. a warm white |
| About an hour before bed | e.g. a deep orange |
| If you are still working after that | e.g. a deep red |
Each step is a warmer white point, with less of the short-wavelength end of the spectrum at the same brightness. Brightness is a separate control, and turning it down cuts the total amount of light as well.
You can set each step by hand from the menu bar, or build a custom schedule in Sundown by time of day. Turn Night Shift off when you use Sundown, because two apps changing the display colour at once give unpredictable results. For a closer look at how Sundown and Night Shift differ, see Sundown vs Night Shift, and if you are weighing other options too, our roundup of Night Shift alternatives for Mac covers them.
If Night Shift is on and you want the evening by the number instead, try Sundown and pick the warmth yourself.
