I like using Night Shift on my iMac to cut out the blue light and help slow down my brain at night. Except occasionally I need to work on editing some graphics and need the full spectrum to ensure I’m seeing accurate colors. Is there a way to quickly disable Night Shift?
I’m also a fan of “Night Shift” on the Mac system; it’s a smart and effortless way to filter out some of the blue spectrum light from your computer screen as the evening progresses so that your brain can slow down and you can get to sleep when you go to bed. it’s bad enough we spend so much time of an evening looking at screens, but to be kicking up your brain chemistry because it thinks you’re still in daylight, well, it’s enough to lead to some pretty serious insomnia.
As you point out, however, the problem with Night Shift is that if you need to accurately see the colors of a graphic, video, or photograph, it’s up to you to remember that Night Shift is going to affect color reproduction and potentially cause you to adjust the image to compensate. I know because I do the same thing, editing videos late into an evening sometimes even while Night Shift is filtering out the blue. Modern problems, undoubtedly!
Fortunately, it turns out that there are some pretty neat shortcuts to temporarily disable Night Shift, though I’m going to start by pointing out the one place where I think I should be able to get to the settings but can’t: in Spotlight…
Instead, look closely at the menu bar on your Mac system, specifically the top right. You’ll see something like this:
Didja ever click on the three bullet point horizontal bars on the right? Turns out that’s a shortcut that reveals a Notifications Pane on the right side of the window. Super helpful! Here’s what you’ll see:
You’re still with me, so that’s good. But… where’s the Night Shift control? Though there’s zero indicator this is a possibility, two-finger drag downward on the pane and you’ll reveal two additional controls:
There ya go! The handy shortcut for Night Shift on your MacOS X system – whether it’s an iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or any of the other systems running MacOS – and the similarly handy way to enable “Do Not Disturb” too.
Not sure what Do Not Disturb is? You’re not alone. Here’s how Apple describes it: “Banners and alerts will be hidden and notification sounds will be silenced.” In fact, lots of Mac users have it permanently enabled!
So that’s how you wrest control of Night Shift as needed. Don’t have Night Shift or want to get better control over its settings? Go into Control Panels and you’ll find this configuration screen as part of “Display”:
That should get you all set up!
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing about Mac and MacOS X since the beginning of the Macintosh system. You can find tons of Mac help here on the site too, so please take a few minutes and check it out!