Description
Your MacBook Pro's XDR panel can hit 1600 nits, yet macOS caps everyday windows at 600 and saves the rest for HDR video. Next to a window or outdoors, that means squinting at your editor. EasyDisplay sits in the menu bar and pushes the backlight itself, so regular SDR content reaches 1000 nits. It only touches the backlight, never pixel scaling or color management, so colors stay exactly as accurate as before.
It is more than a brightness toggle. While boosting it follows ambient light, learns the level you pick in different lighting, lowers its own ceiling when the panel gets warm, and restores the original display preset if you turn boost off, quit, or even crash. Requires macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon.
XDR boost: Raises the built-in XDR backlight directly so ordinary SDR content goes up to 1000 nits with no pixel scaling and no color shift.
Auto brightness while boosting: Uses the ambient light sensor, but only reacts to real changes (10% brighter for 4 seconds, 20% darker for 8 seconds) and fades smoothly instead of jumping.
Learns your preference: Nudge the slider or brightness keys while auto brightness runs and it remembers that level for that lighting only, so brightening a dark room at night does not blind you at noon. The learned curve can be viewed or reset in settings.
Thermal protection: Driving the backlight bypasses macOS's own thermal management, so EasyDisplay steps down from 42 °C, caps at 600 nits at 45 °C and 400 nits above 48 °C.
Brightness keys: Takes over the keyboard brightness keys and adjusts whichever screen you are using (the frontmost window's, otherwise the one under the cursor), built-in or external, with a nit readout in the corner. Hold ⌥⇧ for fine steps.
External displays: Control external monitor brightness from the same menu, via the system for Apple displays and DDC/CI for everything else.
Monitoring and analysis: Logs brightness, backlight power, system power, panel temperature and ambient light every second, with charts from 5 minutes to 30 days plus boost time, backlight energy share and time spent at each level. All data stays on your Mac.
Auto update: Pulls Apple-notarized builds from GitHub, installs only those signed by the same developer, and can opt into betas.
It is more than a brightness toggle. While boosting it follows ambient light, learns the level you pick in different lighting, lowers its own ceiling when the panel gets warm, and restores the original display preset if you turn boost off, quit, or even crash. Requires macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon.
Features
XDR boost: Raises the built-in XDR backlight directly so ordinary SDR content goes up to 1000 nits with no pixel scaling and no color shift.
Auto brightness while boosting: Uses the ambient light sensor, but only reacts to real changes (10% brighter for 4 seconds, 20% darker for 8 seconds) and fades smoothly instead of jumping.
Learns your preference: Nudge the slider or brightness keys while auto brightness runs and it remembers that level for that lighting only, so brightening a dark room at night does not blind you at noon. The learned curve can be viewed or reset in settings.
Thermal protection: Driving the backlight bypasses macOS's own thermal management, so EasyDisplay steps down from 42 °C, caps at 600 nits at 45 °C and 400 nits above 48 °C.
Brightness keys: Takes over the keyboard brightness keys and adjusts whichever screen you are using (the frontmost window's, otherwise the one under the cursor), built-in or external, with a nit readout in the corner. Hold ⌥⇧ for fine steps.
External displays: Control external monitor brightness from the same menu, via the system for Apple displays and DDC/CI for everything else.
Monitoring and analysis: Logs brightness, backlight power, system power, panel temperature and ambient light every second, with charts from 5 minutes to 30 days plus boost time, backlight energy share and time spent at each level. All data stays on your Mac.
Auto update: Pulls Apple-notarized builds from GitHub, installs only those signed by the same developer, and can opt into betas.
