Artemisia For Mac

Apple prides itself on the visual design of its devices and software, but some graphic elements in macOS are a little bit of an eyesore. The volume and brightness OSDs are prime candidates for a redesign, but you’ll have to rely on third-party apps until Apple decides to give them a facelift.

Artemisia is a small open-source app that replaces the volume and brightness indicators with much sleeker and modern-looking alternatives. What’s more, they can be moved around as you see fit.

The standard macOS brightness/volume OSD is much too bulky, and it doesn’t help that it’s placed near the center of the screen, where it can get in the way and cover up something important.

While this app is running, the OSD will be replaced with a more iOS-like alternative, which takes up very little screen space and just looks more modern. It’s pretty much identical to the volume control seen in the redesigned macOS Control Center, so it fits in perfectly.

You can manage Artemisia from the menu bar, where the OSD position can also be customized. It’s visible in the top-right corner by default, but you can opt for any of the other three corners instead.

While this is certainly subjective, I see no reason to have a volume or brightness OSD right in the middle of the screen, so this seems like a much better alternative.

All’s well and good so far, but it would be great to have the option to hide it from the menu bar. You’re probably not going to want to change your preferences after setting it up, so it would be much better if it ran only in the background. For added convenience, an easy way to add it to your login items would come in handy as well.