Radiance for macOS

Support

Brightness beyond the maximum, on the display that has room for it.

Radiance needs a display with extended-dynamic-range headroom — in practice the built-in Liquid Retina XDR display on a 14″ or 16″ MacBook Pro (2021 or later), or a Pro Display XDR. On any other display the app runs correctly and the screen will not get brighter, because there is no brightness above the ordinary maximum for it to reach. When that is the case the menu says so rather than claiming to be working.

What you need

macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
An XDR display, for Boost
Screen Recording permission, for Boost. The Ring Light needs neither.

Radiance reads the ceiling from your display rather than assuming one, so how far it can go depends on the panel, its brightness setting and the conditions at the time — on a 2025 MacBook Pro the built-in XDR panel has measured close to 8× the ordinary maximum. The presets step through 1.5×, 2×, 2.5× and 3×, each clamped to whatever your display actually reports.

Getting started

Radiance lives only in the menu bar. There is no Dock icon and no window — the menu-bar item is the whole app.

Click the Radiance icon in the menu bar, then Boost.
Approve Screen Recording when macOS asks for it.
Quit Radiance and open it again. This step is genuinely necessary — see below.
Click Boost once more, then drag Brightness.

Common questions

I approved Screen Recording and nothing happened

A Screen Recording approval does not reach an app that is already running. Quit Radiance completely and open it again.

System Settings shows Radiance as enabled, but it still asks for permission

macOS ties the approval to the exact copy of the app that asked for it. If the app has been replaced or updated, the stored approval can still point at the old copy while the settings row goes on reading as enabled — so toggling it changes nothing. Remove Radiance from System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording with the − button, then add it back.

The menu says this display has no headroom to give

Radiance is working and the display cannot use it. See the note at the top of this page.

Boost paused by itself

It does that deliberately. The menu always names the reason and what will end it.

Protected video on screen: Resumes on its own when the video ends.
Battery below your threshold: Resumes on mains power, or above the level you set.
The Mac is running hot: Resumes on its own once it cools.
The Ring Light is on: The one pause nothing clears by itself — turn the Ring Light off.

The Ring Light does not appear in my screen recording

That is intentional. The Ring Light is excluded from screenshots, screen sharing and Radiance's own capture, so it lights your face without appearing in what you share.

Does Radiance record my screen?

No. Frames are re-rendered straight back to your display and never stored or sent anywhere. The privacy policy sets out exactly what the app can see.

Still stuck?

Bugs, questions and feature requests all go to the same place: info@mojavimedia.com. Saying which Mac and which version of macOS you are on saves a round trip.