Dimly 2025.5.1

Compact Mode, Smarter Automation, Smoother Everything

A major update with an expanded compact tile layout, per-display automation rules, and a fully reworked animation and rendering system.

Highlights

• Compact mode gains new customizable monitor control tiles with brightness/sleep controls, drag-and-drop support, and the option to hide tiles you don't need
• Adaptive tile sizing based on monitors-per-row, with fully customizable row layout via drag-to-reorder - including across rows and into new rows in compact mode
• Per-display connection rules replace the previous single automation rule - each monitor can now be mapped to its own profile
• New Schedule tab with profile triggers for clock time, sunrise, and sunset (including manual coordinate entry)
• Detection of native auto-brightness per display - Dimly no longer silently overrides it and instead shows a subtle indicator in the menu bar
• Fully reworked animation and rendering system based on a per-screen CADisplayLink driver

Improvements

• Smart buttons can now be shrunk if you prefer a more compact look
• Menu bar icon now runs through the native SwiftUI status item button, fixing ghost highlight, invisible content, and broken clicks after hotkey open
• Profile apply can optionally restore tile expand state (configurable via settings)
• DDC/overlay mode badge and correct tint color now shown for all displays in Settings
• Connection rules show resolved display names instead of raw identity strings
• Per-monitor "Forget" action plus a previously-seen-monitors section in Display settings
• Profile apply progress is now based on wall-clock time instead of step-based delays
• All localization keys switched to a unified PascalCase convention
• New bloom/fade panel animation and a regularMaterial glass background
• New Visuals tab with a transition speed slider; appearance and smart button settings moved there
• Added documentation in a dedicated docs/ folder, streamlined README
• Auto-assigned, stable profile colors plus expanded color presets
• Fully localized in up to 40 languages

Fixes & Stability

• App controls section buttons no longer animate/jump when tiles are expanded/collapsed (LazyVGrid replaced with eager stacks)
• Brightness override no longer incorrectly applies when auto-brightness is active - hardware status is checked live at profile apply time
• Appearance (light/dark) now applies instantly across all windows, edge artifact on panel scaling removed
• Fixed all-arrows bounce when reordering displays

Dimly 2026.4

Leaner, More Precise, macOS 26.4 ready

A focused update improving efficiency, fixing panel behavior, and ensuring compatibility with macOS 26.4.

macOS 26.4 (Tahoe) users: Dimly 1.4 includes visual fixes for macOS 26.4. If you are on 1.3, update to 1.4 before or immediately after upgrading to macOS 26.4 - otherwise the UI may look off. Sparkle auto-update will offer 1.4 automatically, or grab it manually from the GitHub releases page.

Highlights

• Reduced idle CPU usage through smarter brightness caching and less frequent display communication
• Fixed menu bar panel sizing issues on macOS 26.4
• Improved panel positioning, including a fix for drifting above the top edge in fullscreen scenarios
• Added right-click rename option directly on monitor tiles in the menu bar panel

Improvements

• More efficient handling of brightness updates, especially in idle scenarios
• Better overall responsiveness of menu bar interactions

Fixes & Stability

• Resolved layout inconsistencies introduced with macOS 26.4
• Fixed edge cases affecting panel placement on fullscreen displays

Dimly 2026.3

A major update focused on customization, stability, and consistent behavior across multi-monitor setups and sleep/wake cycles.

Highlights

• Customizable smart buttons with improved drag & drop reordering, rename support, refined animations, and expanded color options (including gradient and minimal modes)
• Profiles reworked with reordering, overwrite support, improved UX, smarter auto-apply behavior, and smoother brightness transitions
• New compact “short mode” for quick actions, more consistent menu bar layouts across sleep/wake, and improved fast-action visibility controls
• Integrated display controls with more responsive brightness handling, live updates, and better system integration

Improvements

• Smoother animations and transitions, more reliable drag & drop interactions, and improved UI consistency across the app
• Better handling of multi-monitor environments, including more predictable layout and state behavior
• Refined settings window behavior, placement, and compact layouts

Fixes & Stability

• Improved reliability when waking from sleep or unlocking, including more consistent brightness restoration
• Resolved issues with stuck or incorrect brightness states and improved handling of external displays
• Fixed edge cases in monitor detection, restore timing, and UI interactions

Persistence & Cleanup

• More reliable saving and restoring of brightness, layouts, and monitor configurations
• General codebase cleanup, comment improvements, and minor UI refinements

Dimly is a free and open-source quiet macOS menu bar control center for multi-monitor setups. Its core feature is per-display brightness and per-display on/off control, with true DDC brightness when available and overlay mode fallback when it is not, so mixed premium, older, and cheap screens all behave like one coherent setup.

Dimly 2026.2

Dimly is a free and open-source quiet macOS menu bar control center for multi-monitor setups. Its core feature is per-display brightness and per-display on/off control, with true DDC brightness when available and overlay mode fallback when it is not, so mixed premium, older, and cheap screens all behave like one coherent setup.

• autostart option added
• brightness controls with fallback mode added
• ddc vs fallback explainer added to introduction window
• new global hotkey to show/hide Dimly

Dimly 2026.1

Dimly is a free and open-source quiet macOS menu‑bar switch for external monitors - instantly mute glare with fast blackout or true DDC/CI sleep, plus per‑display toggles.

• settings window visuals reworked
• simple mode added
• fading animations smoothened

Dimly 1.0

Dimly is a free and open-source quiet macOS menu‑bar switch for external monitors - instantly mute glare with fast blackout or true DDC/CI sleep, plus per‑display toggles.