Sundown changelog

23 releases since June 2026 · The app's update feed, checked Oct 26, 2026

1. 1.6.3Latest

   Oct 25, 2026

   Your schedule now holds each step until its time, and your licence key fills in even if you copy it after Sundown opens.

   Improved

   • Schedule steps that hold. Each step keeps its warmth and brightness right up to the next step's time, and then the screen changes over a few seconds instead of drifting slowly beforehand, so you always know what your screen will look like.
   • Rounder sliders. On macOS 26 and later, the coloured part of each slider now ends in a round tip under the knob.
   • One sunset on the Schedule tab. The photo at the top of the Schedule tab is now always the same sunset instead of changing as you look at it.

   Fixed

   • Your licence key fills itself in. If you open Sundown first and copy your key from the email afterwards, the licence window now picks it up when you come back to it. Before, it only noticed a key you had copied before opening it.

   The Sundown team

2. 1.6.2

   Oct 23, 2026

   New backgrounds for the dropdown, a clearer Schedule tab, and smoother brightness and warmth keys.

   New

   • Panel background. In Customize you can choose what sits behind the dropdown: Black as before, a Nature photo with a soft blur, or one of two red Textures.
   • A new Schedule tab. It opens with a photo and a button that turns on our recommended schedule in one tap, and each step has its own card with the time in large type.
   • Quit Sundown in Settings. Settings now has a Quit Sundown button.

   Improved

   • Smoother brightness and warmth keys. F1 and F2 now dim and brighten at the same smooth pace as Apple's own brightness keys, and Shift+F1 and Shift+F2 change the warmth just as smoothly.
   • Updates arrive sooner. Sundown checks for a new version every 4 hours instead of once a day, and after you click to update it shows that it is getting the new version ready.
   • A refreshed Home and setup. Home opens on your charts, setup is simpler and quicker, and it has a new slide about giving Sundown as a gift.
   • An easier sun to spot. On a light menu bar, the Sundown sun now has a thin edge so it stands out. The switch style called Classic is now called Glass.

   Fixed

   • Turning off Accessibility. If you switched off Sundown's Accessibility permission while it was running, your keyboard and mouse could stop responding for over a minute. Sundown now notices much sooner and gets out of the way.
   • The setup tour on newer macOS. The tour finds Sundown in the menu bar reliably on the newest macOS, and clicking the sun during the tour now opens it as it should.

   The Sundown team

3. 1.6.1

   Oct 21, 2026

   One Sundown for every Mac on macOS 12 Monterey or later, a guided Welcome for new installs, and a fresh look for Home and the dropdown.

   New

   • One download from macOS 12 up. Sundown now runs on macOS 12 Monterey and every version since, on Apple Silicon and Intel, so there is no longer a separate build for older Macs. If you were using Sundown Classic, this update replaces it and your licence carries over as it is.
   • A guided Welcome. A new install now starts with a short tour that shows you Sundown one step at a time on your own menu bar, and Return takes you to the next step.
   • Your schedule and keys, on from the start. On a new install the recommended schedule and the F1 and F2 brightness keys are already on when the Welcome ends, so there is nothing to switch on first. You can change either one any time in Settings.
   • A Scene switch. In Customize, under Menu Bar, Switch style has a new Scene option that turns the dropdown's on and off switch into a small night sky that turns to sunset.

   Improved

   • A new Home. Home now opens on Tonight, which tells you what your screen is doing and what comes next, with Your evenings right below it.
   • A glass dropdown. On macOS 26 the dropdown is now made of real Liquid Glass. On earlier versions of macOS it keeps the look you already know.
   • The warmth slider follows your schedule. While your schedule is warming the screen, the slider in the dropdown now shows the warmth you can actually see, instead of the last value you set by hand.

   Fixed

   • The menu bar number matches your screen. With Show Temperature on, the number next to the sun now shows the warmth on your screen while a schedule runs, not the last value you picked yourself.
   • Settings no longer hides the dropdown. Opening Settings from the gear used to make the dropdown vanish until you clicked again. Now it stays where it is, just under Settings.
   • Reduce Display Dithering holds after sleep. If you have it switched on, Sundown now applies it again when your Mac wakes, because a wake could quietly turn dithering back on while the switch still read on.

   The Sundown team

4. 1.5.3

   Oct 7, 2026

   This one is mostly about the menu bar. If Sundown finds its sun hidden after launch, it now offers help.

   New

   • Help when the sun is hidden. A few seconds after launch, Sundown checks that its sun is in your menu bar. If it isn't, Sundown may try once to put it back. If it stays hidden, Sundown offers help through a notification or its menu. On macOS 26, a button in that menu opens Menu Bar settings for you. While the sun stays hidden, Sundown asks once per version.
   • Setup points to the right switch. On macOS 26, the menu bar step in setup now says where to turn Sundown on. It's under Allow in the Menu Bar, and a button below opens those settings for you.

   Improved

   • Two switches start off for new installs. If you're new to Sundown, Ambient Dimming and the feedback box start off. You can turn either one on in Settings. If you already use Sundown, both stay exactly as you had them.

   Fixed

   • The bezel stays where you put it. Drag it somewhere, then try another design in Customize, and it stays in the same spot. If you'd dragged it before updating, Sundown keeps the spot from the design you were using.

   The Sundown team

5. 1.5.2

   Oct 6, 2026

   This one is mostly about updates and invites. Once you're on 1.5.2, Sundown updates itself. And everyone can share an invite link now, even on the free trial.

   New

   • Updates install themselves. Once you're on 1.5.2, new versions download, install and reopen Sundown on their own. If you're dragging a slider, the update waits until you let go. If the install needs an administrator password, macOS asks you for it.
   • What's New for future updates. After 1.5.2, updates installed through Sundown can show a short window about what changed. Click Continue to put it away for that version.
   • An invite link for everyone. You can share Sundown while you're still on your trial. Your friend gets 10% off when they buy. Your link is in Settings, under Invite a Friend.

   Improved

   • A new licence window. It opens on the same sunset photo as the welcome screen. When you activate a key, the button fills up while Sundown checks it.
   • One blue for paying. Purchase Sundown, Renew Membership and the menu's pay button are now the same blue as Activate.
   • Your prizes are saved. Prizes you earn during your trial are kept. Buy and activate Sundown on that same Mac, and we'll email you about the ones that are ready. The Surprise Reward at seven referrals stays locked until you activate.
   • Your warmth stays where you put it. On a custom schedule, a warmth you pick by hand lasts until the next scheduled step. Restarting Sundown keeps it. At the next step, your schedule takes over.
   • The welcome survey steps aside. If the licence window opens during the survey, the survey closes and keeps your answers. It comes back once the licence window is closed and your licence is in order.

   Fixed

   • A failed lookup isn't a no. If Sundown can't look up your licence for a moment, that no longer counts as a rejection.

   The Sundown team

6. 1.5.1

   Sep 29, 2026

   This one is mostly about Sundown doing what it says it will: the screen stays warm when HDR video plays, your schedule paints on time, and ⇧F1 goes all the way to the deep red. We also added a few ways to make the menu bar sun your own.

   New

   • Choose your sun. There are four sun icons for the menu bar now, Classic, Soft, Horizon and Halo, and five colours to go with them: Default, White, Purple, Blue and Orange gradient. You'll find both in Settings, under Customize. If you never pick one, you keep the sun you have today.
   • Update in one click. When a new version is ready, an update button shows up in the menu. Click it and Sundown installs the update and reopens itself.
   • A new invite card for inviting a friend.

   Improved

   • A bigger menu bar icon. The sun is a little larger, 20 points tall.
   • A round settings button in the menu.
   • Gentler, faster licence checks. No one who has paid is ever locked out, and saving your licence no longer slows the app down.

   Fixed

   • No more white screen with HDR. When HDR video played, or a window with HDR content was on screen, an old safety guard could switch the warmth off and leave your display white. It doesn't do that anymore, so Sundown stays warm.
   • ⇧F1 reaches the deep red, the same as the slider does.
   • Custom schedules paint on time. In 1.5.0 the schedule could read its times and then never apply them. Each step now lands when you set it to.
   • Screen sharing and recording no longer switch Sundown off, so starting a call or a recording leaves your warmth where it was.

   The Sundown team

7. 1.6.0

   Sep 15, 2026

   Sundown for macOS 12 Monterey and macOS 13 Ventura.

   • Runs on macOS 12 and 13. The main Sundown release needs macOS 14 or newer. Classic is the same warmth, dimming and schedule engine, built to run on older Macs.
   • Your existing licence works. Same account, same key.
   • First release for older Macs. Newer features from Sundown 1.5 arrive in Classic as they are ported. If something does not work on your Mac, tell us from the app's feedback box.

8. 1.5.0

   Sep 14, 2026

   The biggest Sundown yet: a schedule you build yourself, a setup that gets out of your way, four new places to look around in, and a keyboard that finally behaves.

   New

   • A shorter welcome. Setting up Sundown is six screens now instead of seven — the presets screen is gone, the photographs reach the corners, and every step sits on its own backdrop.
   • "Pin Sundown in your menu bar." Its own screen in setup, showing you the move: hold ⌘ and drag the sun to where you want it. It stays there.
   • "Join the lighting revolution." A Mission screen near the end of setup — Share Sundown. Earn rewards and prizes. — with a row to invite a friend by email without leaving it.
   • A Home tab worth opening. Wisdom of the Day on a nature photograph, your one-tap presets, tonight at a glance, a Sharing card, and a box to tell us what you think.
   • Explore. Four cards from people we like — Ra Optics, Blue Light Glasses, Human Friendly Lighting and Eden — with large photographs.
   • Science, in its own tab. The reading that used to be buried now has room to breathe.
   • A night score in Insights. How warm your display ran through your night hours, out of 100 — 6500 K scores zero, 500 K scores full — with your night hours, your average warmth, and the last seven nights as a graph.
   • A rewards ladder in Invite a Friend. Earn rewards and prizes: three invites gets you a Lifetime License to give away; five, ten and fifteen the Lumios Sky, Glow and Candle; twenty a pair of Ra Optics glasses. Hover a tile to see it — in real photographs now, not placeholder art.
   • Six people, in their own words. A testimonial slider under the leaderboard.
   • A share card. Your preset and your Kelvin on a full-resolution photograph, sent to Messages, X or an Instagram Story — or copy the image, or copy the link.
   • Invite by email, from inside the app. Type an address, press send; your link goes with it, and it carries a discount for them.
   • Write a review. A button that opens the review page on our website.
   • Sound Studio. Pick the sound for every moment in the app, or take a preset and be done in one click.
   • Four looks for the brightness pop-up. Classic, Glass, Ember and Frost — choose in Customize. Ember has six background plates; Frost gives you a row of colours and a row of photographs.
   • Comfort, on keys you choose. Hold the modifier you record with F1 to dim and warm in one move, or F2 to brighten and cool. Nothing is claimed out of the box — the Keyboard tab reads "Not set" until you record one, and Control is the one we suggest. ⇧F1 and ⇧F2 stay warmth, always.
   • Schedule notifications. A card that tells you when the day changes gear — on by default, silent, with its own artwork for each partner, and never during your first run.

   Improved

   • Scheduling, rebuilt. Your day in four cards — Daytime, Afternoon, Evening, Night — each with the steps you choose: pick a hue, drag the time, add a step, move it, delete it.
   • One schedule, yours. Custom is now the only mode, and your sunrise and sunset are ordinary steps you can edit like any other.
   • The schedule goes all the way to 500 K. Night can end where the deepest preset does.
   • A custom step has its own colour instead of reading as plain white.
   • "Use the recommended schedule" is a real button, and Move Up and Move Down only appear when there is somewhere to move to.
   • Presets, renamed and re-tuned. Energy 6000 K, Flow 5000 K, Reading 4000 K, Glow 3000 K, Evening 2000 K, Relax 1000 K, Midnight 500 K.
   • ⌘1 to ⌘5 for your pinned presets. ⌘5 lands on Midnight out of the box.
   • Warmth moves at the pace brightness does. Hold ⇧F1 or ⇧F2 and it travels at the same rate as the brightness keys.
   • Every shortcut has its own switch. Turn Brightness Up, Brightness Down, Warmth Up, Warmth Down or Comfort off one at a time.
   • The menu bar tells you where you are. Your current warmth reads right there in the bar, in the system face.
   • Sundown says its own name. While a Sundown window is open, the menu bar reads Sundown instead of whatever you had in front.
   • A calmer sidebar. Icons run cool to warm down the list, no section labels, tabs in the order you actually use them.
   • Home says what just happened. The warmth Sundown last applied, in the past tense, with how long ago it was.
   • The one-tap swatches follow the warmth ladder instead of washing out to near-white.
   • Sharing moved up. The Sharing card now sits under Wisdom with bigger buttons, and the same rays artwork you meet during setup.
   • The night score sits under Warmth Applied, where you look for it. The warmth trace wipes in, the bars rise in sequence and the numbers count up — and Reduce Motion turns all of that off.
   • A narrower notification card, with a proper bordered Learn More button, resting at the bottom of its settings page.
   • Sound Studio controls fill their row. Every dropdown is the full width of its card.
   • Explore, in order. Ra Optics, Blue Light Glasses, Human Friendly Lighting, Eden — with card titles and spacing matched to the rest of the app.
   • Corner curves made concentric in the four places they were off.
   • The welcome survey is bigger, sits in its own card, and ends with an invitation to write a review.

   Fixed

   • Your hand wins. Set the warmth yourself while a schedule is running and it stays where you put it — no more being snapped back a minute later.
   • Settings opens and stays open. Clicking the gear in the menu-bar pop-up brings Settings to the front instead of leaving it behind another app.
   • Off means off on day one. Switching Sundown off on the welcome screen now sticks, with F1 and F2 behaving normally.
   • F1 and F2, without the flicker. The brightness keys hold the display steady instead of flashing on the way.
   • Smooth holds. Holding ⇧F1 or ⇧F2 now glides instead of lurching.
   • F14 and F15 work too, on the keyboards that use them for brightness.
   • Every Frost tile is clickable, not just the first and the last.
   • Sound Studio presets apply on the first click.
   • The feedback box works. Its email field is visible, and what you write actually reaches us.
   • Referral links always carry their disclosure, however you share them.
   • No phantom share figure. The invite screen only shows a share percentage when one is actually set up for you.

   Follow the Sun has left the interface — one schedule, built by you, with sunrise and sunset as steps you can edit.

   XDR Boost is still paused while its safety rework is finished — it returns in a later update.

   — The Sundown team

9. 1.4.10

   Aug 19, 2026
   • Fixes the screen-whiteout bug. With XDR Boost on, the boost layer could blow the display to pure white — most often when a screen recording started, or when the boost was switched on while one was already running. Five separate holes in the safety path are closed, including a confirmation prompt that could be bypassed and an emergency key that could be undone by a queued action.
   • XDR Boost is temporarily unavailable. The toggle is greyed out and reads "Returning in the next update". Boost's safety net depends on a screen-capture monitor that only runs while dimming is active, which means Boost could be switched on at a moment when nothing was watching it. Rather than hold the whiteout fixes back, this release ships them with Boost paused. It returns once capture monitoring runs on its own.
   • Sun-arc phase display. The schedule view now shows the sun's phase with a matching status line.

10. 1.4.9

    Jul 23, 2026
    • Schedule now actually controls your display. A long-standing bug prevented Follow-the-Sun and Custom schedules from overriding a manually-set warmth value — the display stayed at whatever you last dragged the slider to instead of following the schedule. Fixed: when the schedule says daytime, warmth turns off; when it says nighttime, warmth comes on.
    • Sliders work again on Sequoia 15.7.5. A macOS update changed how SwiftUI hit-tests sliders rendered at very low opacity. The warmth and brightness sliders could become undraggable. Patched without any visible change to how they look.
    • Smarter scheduling engine. Polar-night and midnight-sun regions now get correct warmth instead of nothing. Schedule transitions are DST-safe and no longer drift after clock changes.

11. 1.4.8

    Jul 18, 2026
    • No more white-outs while recording. With XDR Boost enabled, starting a screen recording could blow the display to pure white — the boost layer kept re-presenting into the recorder's HDR transition. The layer now draws only when something actually changes, presents in lockstep with the window server, and a watchdog tears it down instantly if the system ever drops its dimming filter. Record away.
    • A calmer Scheduling tab. The schedule view got a visual cleanup — clearer day-part zones, a simpler MODE / ADVANCED hierarchy, and less chrome between you and your sunset curve.
    • Leaner at launch. Removed a dead startup gate left over from an earlier experiment — one less thing standing between login and your warmth coming up.

12. 1.4.7

    Jul 16, 2026
    • Neutral is now truly neutral. At the daylight setting, the color algorithm returned a ghost tint — imperceptible, but measurable. It's been eliminated: the neutral slider now writes a mathematically perfect identity curve, so your display is exactly what Apple intended with zero interference from Sundown.
    • Lighter on every frame. True Tone, Night Shift, keyboard sync, and harmony gating are now checked only when the relevant value actually changes, not on every render cycle. Less work per second, same warmth protection.
    • Cleaner in the background. Timers that had no exit condition now wind down correctly when Sundown is disabled or the display sleeps — nothing running when nothing needs to run.

13. 1.4.6

    Jul 14, 2026
    • Two new presets: Energy and Glow. Energy (5500K) for bright, focused work. Glow (2500K) for the wind-down window between golden and orange — seven presets in all, spanning firelight to daylight.
    • Touch to start. Tapping a preset or dragging the warmth or brightness slider now turns Sundown on automatically — no separate toggle needed first.
    • Health facts at the top. A rotating science card greets you on the Home tab — a fresh circadian fact every hour, backed by cited research.
    • Never locked out. Re-opening Sundown from Finder, Spotlight, or the Dock now always surfaces Settings, even when both the menu-bar icon and Dock are hidden.
    • Steadier warmth across sleep and wake. Tint now survives lid-close and reopen; EDR display guard reseeds correctly on wake; True Tone restores to your saved preference after Sundown adjusts it.

14. 1.4.5

    Jul 10, 2026
    • A welcome that feels like glass. The first-run tour is rebuilt in real Liquid Glass — a larger, edge-to-edge window with the dark scrim gone, so the preview breathes and the whole flow feels native to your Mac.
    • The warm-up, smoothed. The live "watch your screen go red" moment is now one clean, continuous ramp — no more flicker or on/off flashing while it demos.
    • Share the calm. A new mission page invites you to pass Sundown to someone whose eyes you care about — give the gift of better nights, get one back.
    • Update right where you are. Settings now shows a check-for-updates button next to your version number — one click to see if you're current and grab the latest, without digging through menus.

15. 1.4.4

    Jul 10, 2026
    • A brand-new welcome. First launch now walks you through Sundown with a live, edge-to-edge preview — watch your display warm from cold daylight to a deep Kindle red, right on the real popover, so you feel the shift before you commit.
    • See it, don't read about it. The onboarding shows the actual menu-bar controls and a real gamma-warm demo instead of static screenshots — what you see in the tour is exactly what you get.
    • Invite a friend in one tap. Copy your referral link straight from the welcome flow and start climbing the reward ladder from day one.

16. 1.4.3

    Jul 9, 2026
    • Fixed: screen turning white while screen-recording. Recording your screen with QuickTime or any capture tool no longer washes the display to white — your dimming holds and the recording shows real content.
    • Fixed: white flash on wake. Opening the lid or waking your Mac now re-applies Sundown instantly, with no bright flash.
    • Brightness keys work the way they should. Your Touch Bar / Control-Strip brightness slider now dims Sundown's warm gamma — flicker-free — instead of just moving the backlight.
    • Fixed: reinstall lockout. Complimentary and VIP license holders now auto-recover their key after a reinstall or Keychain reset, just like everyone else.
    • Reliable paste. ⌘C / ⌘V / ⌘X / ⌘A now work everywhere, including the license-key field.
    • Easier updates. A clear "Update available" button, and automatic updates are on by default — so the fixes we ship actually reach you.

17. 1.4.2.2

    Jul 8, 2026
    • Fixed: brightness snapping back to full. If you turned brightness down and it jumped back up after letting go, that's resolved — your setting now holds.
    • You can optionally leave your email with in-app feedback now, so we can follow up and actually help.

18. 1.4.2.1

    Jul 8, 2026
    • Send us feedback right from the app — a cleaner in-app feedback box (with a show/hide toggle under Display). We read every note.
    • Referral fixes — your Invite-a-Friend stats now update live, and gift links are correctly credited to you.
    • Even darker glass — the Settings panel reads deeper and richer on any background.
    • Full Harmony — your keyboard backlight now dims in step with your screen warmth.
    • Under-the-hood: fixed a slow memory leak in the ambient-light sensor path.

19. 1.4.2

    Jul 7, 2026
    • Redesigned dark glass UI — deeper translucency, consistent darker cards across every tab, hover feedback on the sidebar and dropdown.
    • Never lose your license — reinstalling or moving Macs now keeps you licensed automatically; no more accidental trial lock-outs.
    • Faster & lighter — eliminated idle CPU churn (settings now sip power) and fixed a rare crash under rapid brightness-key presses.
    • Live Insights — a real 7-day protection chart and streak, refreshing as you use it.
    • Scheduling that works — add/remove schedule points reliably; sunrise/sunset times now show in every mode.
    • Invite a Friend — a delightful prize reveal and a referral system that actually rewards you.
    • Clearer onboarding, warmer human tips, and the honest new billing/paywall flow.

20. 1.4.1

    Jul 5, 2026
    • Fixed: Settings no longer flickers or turns off Sundown
    • CPU watchdog thresholds relaxed — no more false alarms