A small guide
How to make your Mac grayscale
A gray screen pulls at you less. Thumbnails, badges and red dots stop shouting, and what matters is still there. Your Mac can already do it. Here’s how, and where Less Pull takes over.
The built-in way
macOS has a grayscale filter, made for accessibility. It’s free and takes a minute.
- Open the Apple menu, then System Settings.
- Go to Accessibility, then Display.
- Turn on Color filters, and choose Grayscale as the filter type.
For a quick switch: in Accessibility, open Shortcut and select only Color Filters. From then on, Option-Command-F5 turns grayscale on and off. On a Mac with Touch ID, pressing it three times does the same.
On macOS 12 and earlier, the same filter is in System Preferences, under Accessibility, Display, Color Filters.
What the built-in way can’t do
- It’s all or nothing. Every app turns gray, your photos, maps and charts too.
- No exceptions. You can’t keep one app, one website or one page in color.
- No warmth of its own. Gray and Night Shift are two separate switches that don’t know about each other.
- No quick look. To check a color, you switch it off, and then you have to remember to switch it back on.
For a day, that’s fine. For every day, it gets in the way: the moment you open Photos, you switch it off, and it tends to stay off.
With Less Pull
Less Pull is a small, free menu bar app that does grayscale the way you’d want it every day.
- Grayscale in one click, from the circle in the menu bar or with a shortcut.
- Warmth, from a touch of amber to red, with one slider.
- Exceptions for any app, website or single page: your photos in color, everything else quiet.
- Peek: color for as long as you hold a key, quiet again when you let go.
- Sessions: focused work with a gentle end.
- Private: no account, no analytics. Screenshots keep their colors.
Free · Macs with Apple silicon, macOS 13 or later
On your phone, too
iPhone: Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Color Filters, then Grayscale. Add Color Filters to the Accessibility Shortcut, and a triple-click of the side button switches it on and off.
Android: look in Settings for Grayscale. On many phones it’s in Digital Wellbeing, under Bedtime mode.
Does a gray screen help?
Nobody can honestly promise that, and Less Pull doesn’t: not for sleep, not for eyes, not for health. What many people notice is simpler. Color is how a screen asks for attention, and in gray it asks less loudly. Try it for a day and notice where your eyes go.
That’s the whole trick.
The rest of your day is yours.
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