CLEAR
Texture only, colour untouched.
The standard surface: fine grain and almost nothing else. It keeps colour shift to a minimum, so it suits daytime work with photographs and design.
In App Store reviewmacOS menu bar app
Paperstyle lays a thin paper surface over your Mac's display, easing glare and contrast that feels too strong. Brightness and colour temperature stay as they are.
Surface
Intensity
A sheet of paper is over this whole page. Take it off with the switch, or with ⌃⇧P. Defaults are Clear and 55.
Text on paper reaches your eyes as reflected light. Text on a screen is light coming straight at you. You may be reading the same words, but your body receives them differently. When a screen starts to feel glaring towards the end of the day, that difference may be part of why.
Turning the brightness down does reduce glare. But unless the room is dark, a screen turned down too far only becomes hard to read. Changing the colour temperature leaves white as white, and the gap between black and white as wide as it was.
Paperstyle touches neither brightness nor colour temperature. It lays one very thin paper surface over the screen. The hardness of white loosens a little, and the edges of the letters stay exactly where they were.
The white you are reading right now is under that sheet. Take it off with the switch above, or with ⌃⇧P.
— Did you read this far without looking away?
How it works
There are already several ways to cut glare. Paperstyle overlaps with none of them.
White may lose at most 10% of its brightness. There is no layer that dims the whole screen.
Why paper
A paper surface has fine unevenness, and slight variation in its colour, that an emissive screen does not. Paperstyle lays those qualities over the screen, very faintly. When you stop noticing the effect, that is the right strength.
Surfaces
Chosen by which is easiest to look at rather than by taste. Hover a button to try it on this whole page; click to keep it.
The standard surface: fine grain and almost nothing else. It keeps colour shift to a minimum, so it suits daytime work with photographs and design.
A faintly warm ground beneath the page, easing the hardness of white backgrounds. For the hours you spend reading — the web, Notion, mail, PDFs.
Built on a pale grey, making contrast and saturation feel gentler. For the evening, or whenever the screen feels like too much.
Using it
Compare Clear, Warm and Quiet on the same screen and take whichever looks most natural. The menu stays open while you choose.
Bring the slider down to just before the point where you stop noticing the effect. If you can see a pattern, it is too strong.
Turn on Open at Login if you want it — it starts out off. Press ⌃⇧P at any time to get your ordinary screen back.
Specifics
It lays one sheet on top and has no idea what is underneath. It does not ask for screen recording permission.
Everything happens on your Mac. Paperstyle makes no network connections. There is nothing for it to send.
No sign-up and no login. Install it and start.
Screenshots, screen recordings, and screen sharing are all excluded. Your own settings stay out of other people's meetings and files.
CPU use is essentially zero while nothing is moving. It redraws only when you change the surface. Memory is roughly 50 MB plus four bytes per physical pixel per display (about 103 MB for a Retina and a 4K together).
Clicks, scrolling and keystrokes pass straight through. It never takes focus, covers every connected display, and comes back after you replug one.
FAQ
There is no layer that darkens the whole display. White may lose at most 10% of its brightness. If dimming were the answer, turning the brightness down would already be enough.
Yes. Paperstyle never looks at the clock and never changes colour temperature. They do different jobs.
No. It does not ask for screen recording permission, and it makes no network connections.
No. It is excluded from every software capture path.
Not unless you turn that on. Open at Login starts out off.
A one-time purchase. The price will be on the Mac App Store when it ships. It is in review now. There is no subscription and no account.
macOS 13 or later.
In App Store reviewPublic soon
It will be on the Mac App Store once review finishes. Until then, read this page under the paper for a day.
macOS 13 or later. One-time purchase. No account.