This App Automatically Switches Your Mac to Dark Mode When You're in a Dark Room

Dark or light mode: Some people prefer one over the other all day, every day, and they're wrong. The enlightened among us know the truth: It's best to use light mode when it's light and dark mode when it's dark.

That's why macOS, in the Appearance section of System Settings, offers an Auto option, which switches to dark mode at sundown. This works well enough if you're working in a room with windows, I suppose, but that's not everyone's workspace. There are all kinds of reasons you might be in a dark room during the day and a light room during the night.

These are the exact situations DarkModeBuddy solves. This tiny open-source application uses the light sensors built into every MacBook and iMac to automatically switch between dark and light mode, depending on your lighting conditions. The application is free to download (but you can contribute to the developer, if you're generous).

There are only four settings to toggle. The first two checkboxes let you decide whether the application should start when your Mac does and whether you want to enable the automatic theme changing. You can also use two sliders to set the light level that will trigger dark mode—adjust these if the switch isn't happening when you like. You can also adjust the delay between changing lighting conditions and your theme actually changing (the default is one minute). It's a good idea to have at least some delay to prevent your laptop from flickering between the two themes at certain times of day.

The application takes up a mere 6MB of hard drive space. It also runs entirely in the background—there's not even a menu bar icon. You can close the application at any time by launching it, which will open the settings, and then using the keyboard shortcut CMD+Q.

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