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Outshine for Mac

A small menu bar app that makes your MacBook readable outside. Version 0.10.1, signed and notarized by Apple.

DownloadforMac

.dmg · 1.4 MB · macOS 13 Ventura or later · Apple Silicon and Intel

You'll need a licence key

Outshine is a one-time purchase. The download is free, and without a key it works on the left half of your screen so you can compare before buying. A licence key unlocks the whole display. One key activates one Mac, and you can move it to another Mac by deactivating the first from inside the app.

Not on sale yet

Outshine hasn't launched, so there's no way to buy a key at the moment — downloading now gets you an app you can't unlock yet. Join the waiting list and you'll get the early-access price when it opens.

What macOS will ask you

Outshine is notarized, so it opens without the "unidentified developer" warning. On first launch macOS will ask for Screen Recording permission. That sounds alarming, so here is exactly why:

Outshine lifts the bright parts of your screen while leaving text and dark interface alone. To do that it has to see what's currently on screen. That reading happens entirely on your Mac using Apple's own display APIs — the screen content is never stored, uploaded or transmitted. The only network requests Outshine makes are to check your licence key.

If you'd rather not grant it, the Blazing preset still works without Screen Recording — it lifts the whole screen uniformly instead of reading it. Reading, Outdoor and Dark need the permission.

What you'll actually get

How much difference Outshine makes depends on your display, and it's worth being straight about that:

  • MacBook Pro with a Liquid Retina XDR display — the largest effect. These panels hold back a lot of brightness that macOS reserves for HDR content.
  • MacBook Air and non-XDR Macs — a real but smaller lift. There's less headroom to unlock, so more of the benefit comes from the content-aware boosting than from raw brightness.
  • Older Intel Macs without EDR support — the app runs, but the brighter-than-maximum effect needs a display with EDR headroom, so there is little or nothing to unlock.

Requirements

  • macOS 13 Ventura or later — it will not launch on macOS 12 or earlier
  • Apple Silicon or Intel — ships as a universal binary
  • An EDR-capable display for the full brightness effect

Trouble installing? Email mss@pumpthejuice.com