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Quiet Lens

Quiet Lens

Dim everything except your active window.

A native macOS menu bar app that blurs every window except the one you're working in — so you can focus on one task at a time. Part of the Quiet Apps family.

macOS Swift SwiftUI License: MIT Release Downloads Stars

Download · Features · Usage · Build from source · Contributing

Why

You have ten apps open. You only need one. Quiet Lens covers everything else with a soft frosted-glass dim — the active window stays crisp, the rest fades into background noise. Click through to the next window and the dim moves with you, smooth and animated. Shake your cursor to toggle. No new keybinding to learn, no app switcher to fight.

Inspired by Monocle. Rebuilt from scratch, free and open source under MIT.

Features

Three focus modes

  • Deep — full-screen frosted-glass dim, heavy tint + strong real NSVisualEffectView blur everywhere except your active window
  • Ambient — subtle vertical-fade gradient, cinematic backdrop instead of full coverage
  • Tinted — solid color wash with .multiply blend, lighter blur, between Deep and Ambient

Liquid Glass Settings UI

  • macOS 26-inspired material hierarchy — wallpaper → chrome → panel → control → overlay
  • Real .ultraThinMaterial backdrops let the colorful wallpaper refract through every panel
  • Live preview canvas on the Appearance tab — a faux desktop with four background apps + a focused Safari window. Drag any slider (blur, opacity, tint, gradient, grain, edge-glow halo, shader speed) and the scene reacts frame-by-frame so you can dial in your look without toggling the real overlay
  • Settings search (⌘K) — filters cards by keyword across every screen
  • ⌘1–⌘5 jump between tabs
  • Sidebar with brand mark, version label, accent-tinted active item, persistent search field with ⌘K chip
  • Color Scheme override (System / Light / Dark) for the app itself
  • 15 tint swatches — brights (Purple, Cyan, Magenta, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue) + darks (Indigo, Navy, Forest, Crimson, Slate, Charcoal) + neutrals (White, Black) + rainbow custom picker
  • 5-segment sensitivity bar for shake (Very Low → Very High)
  • Custom drag-based sliders with accent fill + glow that respond to both click-to-position and live drag

Real visual control

  • Variable blur radius 0–50 (continuous slider)
  • Overlay opacity 10–100%
  • 9 Apple system colors + rainbow custom picker + As System (matches macOS accent color live)
  • Optional gradient tint with second color + 0–360° angle
  • Edge glow — soft halo around the focused window, like macOS Stage Manager (toggle + radius slider, color follows tint)
  • Custom backdrop — replace the blur with your own image or the current macOS desktop wallpaper
  • High-frequency film grain (2048×2048 noise, soft-light blend, Gaussian-distributed for cinematic feel)
  • Grayscale background filter
  • Animated shader modes: Static / Breathing / Drift / Pulse with speed slider
  • 5-tick sensitivity slider for shake detection (Very Low → Very High)

Smart window tracking

  • Active window floats above the overlay — using private CGS APIs to raise the focused window's z-level, so there's zero corner seam or anti-alias bleed around rounded macOS windows
  • Pinned apps — designate apps that always stay clear, even when not focused. Perfect for keeping a terminal, music player, or reference window visible while you work elsewhere
  • Per-screen active window detection — focus Xcode on monitor 1 + Slack on monitor 2, both stay crystal clear
  • Optional highlight all windows of same app for multi-window workflows (Xcode editors, Figma boards)
  • Smooth animated cutout transitions when you switch windows
  • AX-based focus tracking + CGWindowList z-order fallback
  • Skips off-screen and minimized windows automatically

Gestures & shortcuts

  • Shake to toggle — wiggle the cursor in any direction (2D detection, 60 Hz polling, no Input Monitoring permission required)
  • Shake-to-peek — hold ⇧/⌥/⌘ (configurable) + shake to temporarily reveal everything
  • 5-segment sensitivity bar (Very Low → Very High) with live label
  • Four global hotkeys with full F1–F12 + number-row support: toggle overlay, open settings, exclude current app, pin current window

Rules

  • Exclude any app from the overlay (file picker or running-app menu)
  • Finder excluded by default on first run
  • Hide Dock toggle — overlay leaves the Dock area uncovered when off; hides the Dock entirely when on
  • Hide Menu Bar toggle — same behavior for the menu bar strip
  • Drag-and-drop awareness — overlay fades out while you drag a file, fades back when you drop

Native macOS feel

  • Menu bar agent (no Dock icon)
  • Control Center–style Settings UI built in SwiftUI (sidebar nav, material-backed cards, segmented mode picker)
  • Custom app icon (depth-tunnel concentric focus rings) + 4-state menu bar glyph
  • URL scheme automation: quietlens://toggle | enable | disable | settings
  • Multi-display aware, hot-swappable monitors
  • Onboarding for Accessibility permission with auto-recovery polling
  • ⌘W closes Settings, transparent titlebar, vibrant material background
  • iCloud sync — optional toggle that mirrors your overlay configuration across all your Macs

Installation

Note: Quiet Lens is not yet code-signed with an Apple Developer ID. macOS Gatekeeper will warn on first launch. The steps below work around it. A signed/notarized build is on the roadmap.

Homebrew (recommended)

brew tap quietapps/quietlens
brew install --cask quietlens

The cask strips the macOS quarantine attribute on install so Gatekeeper does not block launch (the build is currently unsigned). The tap is community-maintained at quietapps/homebrew-quietlens.

Direct download

  1. Grab Quiet Lens.zip from the latest release
  2. Unzip → drag Quiet Lens.app into /Applications
  3. Strip the quarantine attribute (or Right-click → Open once):
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Quiet Lens.app
  1. Launch Quiet Lens
  2. Grant Accessibility access when prompted (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility)

Heads-up about unsigned builds

  • The Homebrew cask strips every extended attribute and re-registers the bundle with Launch Services on install, so the app should launch on a clean Mac out of the box.
  • If a double-click does nothing on first launch, this is Gatekeeper silently blocking the unsigned binary. Fix it once:
    1. Open Finder → /Applications
    2. Right-click Quiet Lens.app → Open
    3. Click Open in the warning dialog
    4. macOS remembers your choice for every subsequent launch
  • After every new release, you may need to remove + re-add Quiet Lens in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. macOS ties the permission to the app's code-signature hash, and unsigned builds change hash each time.
  • If Gatekeeper still won't let the app run, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to the message about Quiet Lens, click Open Anyway.

Updating

Homebrew

brew update
brew upgrade --cask quietlens

After upgrading, if Quiet Lens stops detecting your active window:

  1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility
  2. Select Quiet Lens in the list and click the − button to remove it
  3. Click +, add /Applications/Quiet Lens.app again, and enable the toggle

This is needed because each unsigned build has a different code-signature hash. A signed release in the future will eliminate this step.

Direct download

Download the newer zip from Releases, drag the new Quiet Lens.app over the old one in /Applications, run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Quiet Lens.app, then re-grant Accessibility as above.

Uninstalling

Homebrew

# Remove the app and its preferences (via the cask's zap stanza)
brew uninstall --cask --zap quietlens

# Drop the tap
brew untap parththummar/quietlens

# Purge Homebrew's download cache + old logs
brew cleanup --prune=all -s

Optional manual cleanup if you skipped --zap:

defaults delete app.quiet.QuietLens 2>/dev/null
rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/app.quiet.QuietLens.plist \
       ~/Library/Application\ Support/Quiet Lens \
       ~/Library/Caches/app.quiet.QuietLens \
       ~/Library/HTTPStorages/app.quiet.QuietLens \
       ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/app.quiet.QuietLens.savedState

Then remove the Quiet Lens row from System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility so macOS forgets the old TCC grant.

Direct download

# Move the app to Trash
rm -rf /Applications/Quiet Lens.app

# Remove saved settings + caches
defaults delete app.quiet.QuietLens 2>/dev/null
rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/app.quiet.QuietLens.plist \
       ~/Library/Application\ Support/Quiet Lens \
       ~/Library/Caches/app.quiet.QuietLens \
       ~/Library/HTTPStorages/app.quiet.QuietLens \
       ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/app.quiet.QuietLens.savedState

Then remove Quiet Lens from System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.

Verify it's fully gone

ls /Applications | grep -i focus    # empty
brew list --cask | grep -i focus    # empty (Homebrew users)
brew tap | grep -i focus            # empty (Homebrew users)

Usage

Action How
Toggle overlay Click menu bar icon, or shake cursor, or your global hotkey
Peek through Hold ⇧ + shake to reveal everything temporarily
Switch focus Just click another window — the dim follows your focus
Exclude current app Right-click menu bar icon → Exclude Current App
Open settings Right-click menu bar icon → Settings…
Quit Right-click menu bar icon → Quit

Menu bar icon states

Icon Meaning
◯ (hollow ring) Overlay off
⬤ (solid filled, follows accent in template mode) Deep mode active — solid disc with a small hollow center
Purple→blue→cyan gradient disc Ambient mode active — renders in color, ignores template tinting
◌ (dashed ring) Current app excluded — overlay paused

The icon is drawn programmatically at every render, so it always matches your macOS dark/light theme.

Right-click menu

Each item carries an SF Symbol so the menu reads at a glance: ▶︎ enable, ⏸ disable, 🪟 currently focused app, ⊕/⊖ exclude/include current app, ⚙︎ settings, ⏻ quit.

URL scheme

Drive Quiet Lens from Shortcuts, AppleScript, or a Terminal:

open "quietlens://toggle"
open "quietlens://enable"
open "quietlens://disable"
open "quietlens://settings"

Permissions

Quiet Lens needs Accessibility access to detect which window you're focused on.

On first launch you'll see an onboarding window with a one-click button to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. Flip the Quiet Lens switch on. The app polls every 1.5s and starts the moment you grant access — no restart needed. Once permission is granted for the first time, the Settings window opens automatically with a welcome banner explaining how to use Quiet Lens.

Heads up: macOS ties Accessibility permission to the app's code signature. If you rebuild Quiet Lens from source the signature changes and the old permission entry no longer matches. Fix: remove Quiet Lens from the Accessibility list and add it again. Signed release builds don't have this problem.

Build from source

Requirements

  • macOS 14.0+
  • Xcode 15.0+
  • XcodeGen (project file is generated, not committed)

Steps

git clone https://github.com/quietapps/QuietLens.git
cd Quiet Lens
brew install xcodegen
xcodegen generate
open QuietLens.xcodeproj

Hit ⌘R in Xcode. Or from the command line:

xcodebuild -project QuietLens.xcodeproj -scheme QuietLens -configuration Release build

The built .app lands in ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/QuietLens-*/Build/Products/Release/.

Bumping the version

project.yml is the single source of truth for the version. Both the Info.plist and the About screen read it dynamically, so you only have to change it in one place.

# Bumps MARKETING_VERSION + auto-increments build number,
# resets the Cask sha256, regenerates the Xcode project.
bash scripts/bump-version.sh 1.0.4

# Or specify the build number explicitly:
bash scripts/bump-version.sh 1.0.4 7

Editing MARKETING_VERSION directly in project.yml works too — just run xcodegen generate afterwards. Note: changes made in Xcode's Build Settings UI are lost on the next xcodegen generate, so always treat project.yml as the source.

Project layout

Quiet Lens/
├── App/             # App entry point, AppDelegate, status item
├── Core/            # WindowTracker, OverlayManager, ShakeDetector, HotkeyManager, AutomationHandler
├── Overlay/         # OverlayWindow, BlurOverlayView, CutoutView
├── Views/           # SettingsView, AppearanceSettings, GestureSettings, RulesSettings, OnboardingView
├── Models/          # Settings, ExcludedApp, TintPreset, OverlayMode, ShaderMode
└── Resources/       # Info.plist, entitlements, Assets.xcassets

No external dependencies — Apple frameworks only (AppKit, SwiftUI, CoreImage, Accessibility, Carbon hotkeys, ServiceManagement).

Configuration

Settings live in UserDefaults under your standard suite. Reset everything with:

defaults delete app.quiet.QuietLens

Contributing

PRs welcome. Before opening one:

  1. Open an issue describing the change
  2. Keep changes focused — one feature or fix per PR
  3. Match the existing code style (Swift API design guidelines, no force-unwraps in new code)
  4. Verify the project builds with xcodebuild before pushing

Roadmap

The Settings UI already shows the following — marked COMING SOON in-app, badge + disabled controls — so you can see the shape of the feature before the behavior lands:

  • Auto-enable on focus — turn the overlay on the moment you click into any window
  • iCloud Settings Sync — mirror your config across Macs (UI + bridge code shipped; needs paid Apple Developer entitlement to activate)
  • Auto-disable after — turn the overlay off after an idle period (Never / 5 / 10 / 30 min / 1 h)
  • Cursor halo — subtle ring around the cursor
  • Focus on hover — switch focus when you hover a window
  • Check for Updates — manual update check + Sparkle auto-updater

Beyond the in-app placeholders:

  • Per-app overlay profiles (different blur/tint per excluded-or-included app)
  • Custom Metal shader for true variable blur (free of NSVisualEffectView material constraints)
  • Localization (PRs welcome)
  • Apple Developer ID signing + notarization (drops the xattr step from install)
  • Upstream submission to Homebrew/homebrew-cask

FAQ

Does this slow my Mac down? No. The overlay only redraws when the focused window changes. CPU stays under ~1% idle.

Why is the menu bar dimmed? Toggle Rules → Hide Menu Bar off — the overlay will stop covering the menu bar strip.

My cursor shake doesn't trigger the toggle. Drop Sensitivity in Settings → Gestures toward Very High, then try a brisk zigzag. Detection is 2D — any direction works.

Can I use the system accent color as the tint? Yes — Settings → Appearance → Tint → tap As System. The overlay tint follows your macOS accent color, updating live.

Does it work with multiple displays? Yes. Each display gets its own overlay and tracks its own active window. Focus an app on monitor 1 and a different app on monitor 2 — both stay clear, everything else blurs.

The active window has a thin dark seam around the corners. You shouldn't see this any more — the active window is now raised above the overlay via a private CGS API, so the window itself sits on top instead of being cut out of the overlay. If you do see a seam, file an issue with the focused app's name.

Where is the Quit button? Right-click the menu bar icon → Quit.

Can I add my own shortcut for "exclude the current app"? Yes — Settings → Gestures → Global Shortcuts → record one for Exclude Current App.

Why does Finder not get blurred? Quiet Lens excludes Finder by default so alt-tabbing to the desktop doesn't trigger the overlay. Remove it from Settings → Rules → Excluded Apps if you want Finder blurred too.

License

MIT © Parth Thummar

Inspired by Monocle. Independent implementation. No code shared.

If Quiet Lens helps you focus, drop a ⭐ on the repo.

About

Native macOS menu bar app that dims and blurs every window except the one you're focused on. Deep & Ambient modes, real Gaussian blur, tint presets, film grain, shake-to-toggle, multi-display

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