What is Night Shift?
In macOS, “Night Shift” is a feature that automatically shifts the colors of your display to the warmer (orange/yellow) end of the spectrum after sunset. Apple designed this to reduce your exposure to blue light in the evenings, which is theoretically supposed to help you fall asleep more easily after using your computer.
However, if your job involves any sort of visual accuracy—such as color-grading video, editing photographs, designing web interfaces, or even just shopping for clothes online—Night Shift is disastrous. If it automatically kicks in at 7:00 PM while you are still working, it will instantly distort all the colors on your screen, making whites look yellow and blues look muddy. To maintain strict color accuracy at all hours of the day, you must disable this automatic schedule.
How to Disable the Night Shift Schedule
You can turn off the automatic color warming in the Displays settings.
- Click the Apple Logo in the top-left corner of your Mac’s screen.
- Select System Settings… (or System Preferences on older versions of macOS).
- In the left-hand sidebar, scroll down and click on Displays.
- In the main right-hand pane, look for the button labelled Night Shift… (usually located near the bottom or under an “Advanced” tab depending on your macOS version) and click it.
- A popup window will appear. Look for the dropdown menu labelled Schedule.
- Click the dropdown menu and change the selection from “Sunset to Sunrise” (or “Custom”) to Off.
- Ensure the checkbox (or toggle) below it for “Turn on until tomorrow” is also disabled.
- Click Done.
Your Mac’s display will now remain perfectly calibrated and color-accurate 24 hours a day. It will never randomly turn orange in the middle of your evening work sessions.