Nocturnal For Mac

The Night Shift feature has been highly appreciated since it was introduced in macOS Sierra, but it is not without its faults, according to some users at least. For instance, it can be rather difficult to fine-tune, as you have to access your Mac's display settings to make manual changes.

Nocturnal is an open-source app that aims to address this lack of functionality and add a useful feature of its own — the ability to reduce the display's brightness lower than the standard hardware controller allows.

I think this is the app's most useful feature, as it makes it much easier to play around with the strength of the color temperature filter managed by Night Shift. Normally, you can either set it to automatic or create a custom schedule, but manual modifications require you to access the Displays prefpane.

With Nocturnal, things are quite a bit simpler. While it is enabled, the normal Night Shift schedule is overruled by the slider available in your menu bar. You can disable the app at any time to return to the default macOS setting.

Admittedly, there aren't too many uses for this particular feature, unless you find that your monitor doesn't support a low enough brightness setting. It could be helpful at night, but probably not for most users.

However, you could just rely on it as an alternative to the monitor's brightness controller, should the latter not be as easily accessible for various reasons. Either way, it can't hurt to have it around.

Just like the macOS Night Shift feature, you can disable Nocturnal for a certain amount of time. However, you have a bit more control, as you can set the exact number of hours and minutes it should be turned off for.

Nocturnal doesn't do a whole lot, but it's a free, open-source app that makes it much easier to manage Night Shift on your Mac. If you often feel the need to fine-tune your display's color temperature, this app is worth a look.