GlowLight: Why I Built an Ambient Light App for Mac
I made GlowLight because I wanted my Mac to look prettier. The name combines Glow and Light, a soft glowing illumination along the top of your display. That's exactly what it does.
The Idea Behind It
Desk setups look better with ambient lighting. LED strips behind monitors, smart bulbs casting soft colors in the background, bias lighting on TVs. These additions exist because people care about how their workspace looks and feels.
I wanted that same ambient quality on my Mac, without buying extra hardware. GlowLight brings the feeling of ambient lighting directly to your screen. It projects smooth gradient animations along the top edge, creating a subtle effect that enhances your workspace without demanding attention.
The app sits quietly in your menu bar, ready to cast colors across your display whenever you want.
Themes and Animations
GlowLight comes with multiple themes. Solid Color for a clean, minimal look. Rainbow for a continuous spectrum that cycles through colors. Sunset for warm oranges and pinks. Ocean with deep blues and teals. Neon bringing vibrant pinks and electric colors. Fire with intense oranges and reds. Forest offering calming greens. Aurora mimicking the northern lights. Silver for a sleek, metallic aesthetic.
Each theme pairs with one of three animation styles. Flow creates smooth, continuous movement across the gradient. Pulse makes the light gently breathe in and out. Sparkle adds subtle glittering effects throughout the colors.
The combination of themes and animations lets you match your mood, your wallpaper, or your room's existing lighting.
Built for Modern Macs
GlowLight works seamlessly with the MacBook notch on M1, M2, and M3 MacBooks. The light effect flows around the notch naturally, creating a continuous ambient glow across the entire top edge.
Multi-monitor setups are fully supported. If you run multiple displays, GlowLight can extend its ambient light across all of them. The app also includes a Redraw option for repositioning the light bar after changing your display arrangement.
Why Beauty Comes First
The motivation behind GlowLight was straightforward: to create something beautiful. There was no complex productivity angle or elaborate feature set. The goal was simply to make Mac screens look better.
Mac users appreciate aesthetics. Apple designs its hardware with careful attention to visual details. People who choose Macs often extend that attention to their entire workspace. GlowLight fits into that sensibility.
This focus on beauty also shaped what GlowLight does not do. The app will not change colors based on system states like CPU usage or notification alerts. Those functional approaches often result in jarring color shifts that disrupt the ambient quality. GlowLight prioritizes looking good over providing information. The light stays calm and consistent, enhancing rather than distracting.
What's Next
Future updates will bring additional themes based on user feedback. There are plans to explore deeper system integration, though any new features will maintain the same philosophy: aesthetics come first.
If users want specific color combinations or new animation styles, those requests will guide development. The priority is keeping GlowLight beautiful and simple.
Try It Out
Once installed, click the menu bar icon to access theme selection and animation controls. Choose your combination and let the ambient light run. The effect is immediate. Your screen gains a subtle glow that makes your setup feel more intentional.
For anyone who has thought about adding LED strips behind their monitor or wished their workspace had more visual warmth, GlowLight offers a software alternative. No cables, no power adapters, no additional hardware. Just smooth gradients flowing across the top of your Mac display.
GlowLight is an ambient light app for macOS that transforms your screen edge into a gentle, glowing display. Available on the Mac App Store.