How to turn on Night Light or Night Shift to rest your eyes
A warmer screen is easier to look at after dark. Here is where Night Light (Windows) and Night Shift (Mac) live, how to schedule them, and how to ask Key to do it.
If you use your computer in the evening, the bright white-blue screen can feel harsh. Both Windows and the Mac have a built-in setting that makes the colors warmer, with less blue and more yellow. Windows calls it Night light. Apple calls it Night Shift.
The setting is easy to use once you know where it is. This guide shows the steps by hand first, then how to ask Key to do it for you.
What Night Light and Night Shift do
Both settings change the color of your screen. Everything gets a warm, amber tint. Your documents and photos look a little yellow while it is on, and that is normal. It is the point of the setting.
You can switch it on by hand whenever you like, or set a schedule so it turns itself on at sunset and off at sunrise. You can also choose how warm it gets.
Turn on Night Light in Windows 11
There is a quick way and a Settings way. The quick way is best for a one-off.
The quick way
- Click the Network or Speakers icon on the right side of the taskbar. This opens the quick settings panel.
- Find the Night light tile. If you do not see it, scroll down in the panel.
- Click the tile to turn it on. Click it again to turn it off.
Through Settings
- Open Start › Settings › System › Display.
- Turn on Night light.
- Click the words Night light (not just the switch) to open its options.
Set a schedule
A schedule means you never have to think about it again.
- Go to Settings › System › Display › Night light.
- Turn on Schedule night light.
- Choose Sunset to sunrise, or choose Set hours and pick your own start and end times.
Make it warmer or milder
On the same Night light page, drag the Strength slider. Move it to the right for a stronger amber tint, or to the left for a gentler one.
Windows 10 has the same feature. Go to Start › Settings › System › Display › Night light settings, then turn on Schedule night light and pick sunset to sunrise or your own hours.
If the switch is grayed out
Microsoft says Night light needs a compatible display driver. If the switch is grayed out, the driver may need updating. Run Windows Update first, then look at Night light again.
Turn on Night Shift on a Mac
Night Shift works on Mac computers introduced in 2012 or later, and on Mac Pro computers introduced in 2013 or later. It needs macOS Sierra 10.12.4 or newer, so nearly every Mac in use today has it.
- Open the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
- Click Displays in the sidebar.
- Click Night Shift.
- Open the Schedule menu. Choose Sunset to Sunrise, or choose Custom to set your own times.
- Drag the Color Temperature slider toward More Warm or Less Warm.
On an older Mac running System Preferences, the path is the same idea: Displays › Night Shift.
You can also switch Night Shift on by hand until sunrise or until your next scheduled time. That is handy when it is still light outside but you want a warmer screen now.
If your Mac's Appearance is set to Auto, Apple says the screen also changes to the dark appearance when Night Shift turns on.
Tips for a more comfortable evening
- Start with a middle strength. Too strong and white pages look orange, which can be tiring in its own way.
- Pair it with a lower brightness. A warm screen that is still very bright is not much easier on the eyes. The guide How to change brightness, dark mode and other settings by voice covers that.
- Turn it off for color-sensitive work, such as choosing paint colors from a photo or editing pictures. The colors you see will be shifted.
- If you do not like it, nothing is lost. You can switch it off any time with the same steps.
Ask Key to do it
If you would rather not click through menus, you can ask Key. Key is a free assistant that lives on your computer. It opens your apps and changes your settings, then tells you what it did.
You can speak or type. The microphone and the chat are the same assistant, so use whichever suits you. Half a sentence is enough, such as "Turn on Night Light" on Windows or "Turn on Night Shift" on a Mac.
Key works in the real Settings window. It opens the page and presses the real switch. A small panel shows what it is doing while it works, and you can stop it at any point. When it is finished, it reads the result back before it tells you, and if it could not check, it says so.
KeyVoiceTurn on Night Light
Night light is on, so your screen is warmer now.
Key also works on other settings people tweak in the evening. You can say "Turn the brightness down" or "Switch to dark mode" in the same way. For more of these, see What can an AI assistant on your PC do every day?
Quick summary
- Windows 11: click the Network or Speakers icon on the taskbar and pick the Night light tile, or go to Settings › System › Display › Night light.
- Mac: System Settings › Displays › Night Shift.
- Set a schedule of sunset to sunrise so it runs by itself.
- Adjust the strength until the screen feels comfortable.
- Or ask Key, by voice or by typing, and let it do the clicking.
Menu names can shift a little between versions of Windows and macOS, but the words Night light, Night Shift and Display or Displays stay the same, so they are easy to search for if a menu looks different on your computer.
Try Key free
Speak to it or type to it. It opens your apps, finds your files and changes your settings, then tells you what it did.
Free, no card. Windows 10 or 11, macOS 11 or newer.