The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the Night Shift feature. Night Shift is a built-in feature of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS that aims to reduce eye strain during night-time use by adjusting your display’s color temperature according to your location and the time of day. This feature is available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices.

What this feature does is to enable users to change the screen’s color to “warmer” (less blue light) (reduces blue light and increases the warmer, redder colors) without changing its brightness. It appears that our circadian system is very sensitive to short-wavelength (blue) light. It further appears that exposure to short-wavelength light from electronic devices in the evening can cause various sleep problems.

Research shows that there is a decline in average sleep duration and quality over the past few decades. Poor sleep may lead to many health problems such as mood disorders, diminished alertness, and performance. It is known that the use of electronic devices (computers, tablets, or TVs) at night and specifically during the hours before sleep can cause delayed sleep and sleep curtailment. These electronic devices emit more short-wavelength (bright blue) light. This may carry some risks for adverse effects in humans. To combat this problem, Apple released the Night Shift feature for its products, iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

To use Night Shift you need macOS Sierra 10.12.4, which is still in beta as I write this post. But once macOS Sierra 10.12.4 is released Night Shift will be available to all Mac users. Night Shift is the Apple native integrated blue light reduction feature. Night Shift was first introduced on March 21, 2016 as part of the iOS 9.3. 1 year after Night Shift first arrived for iPhone on Mar 27, 2017 Apple finally added it also to Mac OSX or as now is called macOS. OS X Hackers by Keilan Dumarais, Wayne Wong, and Isiah Johnson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available on our Terms and Conditions.

Night Shift can help you sleep better. Night Shift will filter bright blue wavelengths from your screen when it is enabled. If you have a device running on iOS 9.3 or later, iPadOS or macOS Sierra or later, you can use this feature. Night Shift can be manually or automatically enabled or disabled.

You can also use Bedtime to track your sleep.

See also: Does Night Shift Have Any Effect On Battery Life?

Turn on and off Night Shift on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

Follow the steps below. There are two ways to do this. Please also note that this feature is available on iPhone 5s or later, iPad Pro, iPad (5 and later), iPad Air or later, iPad mini 2 or later, and iPod touch (6 and later).

In Control Center

This is probably the easiest way. Follow the steps below:

• On your device, open Control Center:
  • iPhone X and later; iPad with iOS 12 or later, or iPadOS: You can swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen.
  • Other iPhone or iPad models: You can swipe up from the bottom of your screen.
• Press and hold on the brightness setting slider.
• This will reveal additional brightness options. You will see a sun icon. Tap the sun icon to turn on-off Night Shift on your device.

In Settings

You can also turn on and off Night Shift and adjust your settings in Settings. Here is how:

• On your device, go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Shift.
• To turn off or on Night Shift toggle the Scheduled option.
• You can also change the Night Shift schedule: “Sunset to Sunrise” (this is the default option) or “Custom Schedule”.
• You can also adjust the color temperature. Simply drag the Color Temperature slider to the left for Less Warm (bluer) and right for More Warm (yellower) spectrum.

See also: How To Turn On & Off Dark Mode in iOS, iPadOS and macOS

How to turn on and off Night Shift on your Mac

This feature is also available on your Mac. As stated above, you need to have macOS Sierra 10.12.4 or later. Here is how:

In System Preferences

• On your Mac, from the Apple menu, select System Preferences.
• Click Display.
• Select the Night Shift tab.
• You can set up a schedule by clicking into the dropdown next to the “Schedule.” option.
• You can also turn it on manually by selecting the box next to “Turn On Until Tomorrow”.
• And lastly, you can also drag the Color Temperature slider to change the color of your screen during Night Shift.

See also: ColorSync Not Working on Mac, Fix

In Notification Center

This is the easiest way but your setting options are limited. Here is how:

• Click the Notification Center icon in the upper-right corner of your screen.
• This will open Notification Center. But still, you may not be able to see the Night Shift setting. Simply scroll up. This will reveal the Night Shift option. You can now manually turn on or off Night Shift.

You can also use Siri to enable or disable Night Shift. Simply activate Siri and say things like “Turn on Night Shift” or “Turn off Night Shift”.

See also: I Disabled Wi-Fi in Control Center But Wi-Fi is Not Turned Off?

About Night Shift

Night Shift¹ uses the clock and geolocation of your device to determine when it’s sunset in your location. Then it automatically shifts the colors of your display to warmer colors. In the morning, it returns the display to its regular settings.

Night Shift Mac Os X Yosemite

Turn on Night Shift

How To Update Mac Os X

There are two ways to turn Night Shift on and off:

• Open Control Center. Firmly press the Brightness control icon, then tap to turn Night Shift on or off.
• Go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Shift.² On the same screen, you can schedule a time for Night Shift to turn on automatically and adjust color temperature.

By default, Night Shift turns on from sunset to sunrise.

Learn more

• Use Night Shift on your Mac.
• Turn on Dark Mode for a great viewing experience in low-light environments.
• Learn how to adjust the display settings on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
• Use Control Center to quickly access settings and apps on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

1. Night Shift is available on iPhone 5s or later, iPad Pro, iPad (5th generation and later), iPad Air or later, iPad mini 2 or later, and iPod touch (6th generation and later).
2. Some display accessibility settings, including Invert Colors, Grayscale, and Increase Contrast, might turn off Night Shift or True Tone display.