PGari Glowee: Mac brightness with window spotlight

An ADHD focus app on the Mac: where a screen tool actually fits

Short answer: If you are shopping for an ADHD focus app for the Mac, here is the honest placement of this one. Glowee is a tool for the screen, not an aid for ADHD. Its Spotlight feature dims everything on the screen except the window you are working in, on any Mac display, and one chord — ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S — turns it on and off. That is all of it. It does not block websites, keep time, plan a day or silence a notification, and it makes no claim about ADHD, its symptoms or its treatment. If the thing tugging at you is the rest of the screen, Glowee turns that down; and before you pay for anything, macOS has a long list of built-in settings, with their menu paths below, that quiet a good deal more for free.

A Mac screen with one window at normal brightness and everything around it dimmed by Glowee's Spotlight, illustrating this ADHD focus app guide

This page is written for someone who searched for an ADHD focus app on a Mac and wants a straight answer about what this one is before spending anything.

What an ADHD focus app usually turns out to be

The apps that rank for this are not variations on one idea; they solve different problems. The final row, the window dimmer, is added because that is the row Glowee belongs in — it is not in the search data for this cluster, and it should not pretend to be.

Kind of tool	Example	How its maker describes it
Website and app blocker	Freedom	"App, Website & Internet Blocker"
Focus timer	Forest	"The #1 Focus App for Time Well Spent"
Body doubling	Focusmate	"Virtual body doubling for getting anything done"
Visual planner	Tiimo	"Visual Planner for Every Neurotype"
Task management	Todoist	"A To-Do List to Organize Your Work & Life"
Small single-purpose tools	Goblin Tools	"small, simple, single-task tools, mostly designed to help neurodivergent people with tasks they find overwhelming or difficult"
Window dimmer	HazeOver	"automatically highlights the front window by dimming background windows"

Every description is quoted from that maker's own site. Glowee belongs in that last row and in no other. Which row is worth your money depends on what actually gets in your way, and that is a conversation for you and any clinician or coach you work with — not something an app's sales page should settle.

Before you buy anything: what macOS already turns off

Set ADHD aside for a moment and look at the screen as a piece of hardware. While you work in one window, a specific set of things moves, blinks, counts or sits in view around it. Almost all of them have a switch, and the switch is free. Every path below comes out of Apple's Mac User Guide for macOS 27.

What is competing	The macOS setting	Where it lives
Notification banners in the top-right corner	A Focus, such as Do Not Disturb	Control Center → Focus. For Do Not Disturb you can also Option-click the date and time in the menu bar
One app that notifies constantly	Allow notifications (off)	System Settings → Notifications → Application Notifications
Red number badges on Dock icons	Badge application icon (off)	System Settings → Notifications → Application Notifications
Notification sounds	Play sound for notification (off)	System Settings → Notifications → Application Notifications
The Dock, bouncing icons, recent apps	Automatically hide and show the Dock; Animate opening applications (off); Show suggested and recent apps in Dock (off)	System Settings → Desktop & Dock
The menu bar	Automatically hide and show the menu bar — Always, On Desktop Only, In Full Screen Only or Never	System Settings → Menu Bar
Files spread across the desktop	Show Items: On Desktop (off)	System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Desktop & Stage Manager
Desktop widgets	Show Widgets: On Desktop (off)	System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Widgets
Interface animation	Reduce motion	System Settings → Accessibility → Motion
Animated GIFs in Messages and Safari	Auto-play animated images (off)	Same place as Reduce motion
The blinking insertion point	Prefer non-blinking cursor	Same place as Reduce motion
Transparent backgrounds in macOS	Reduce transparency	System Settings → Accessibility → Display
Everything around a web article	Safari Reader	Smart Search field → Show Reader

Three of those deserve a sentence each.

A Focus can start itself. In System Settings → Focus, add one and give it an app-based schedule. Apple's description is the useful part: the Focus "turns on when you open the app, and turns off when you close it or switch to another app." Nothing to remember. A time-based schedule behaves the same way, and you decide which people and apps still get through.

Full screen removes the rest. The green button at the window's top-left. Apple's own wording is that it lets you "work without desktop distractions," and in full screen the menu bar and the Dock appear only when you move the pointer to them.

Hide the others without closing them. Option-Command-H leaves the front app standing and hides every other one. Stage Manager does something similar continuously, keeping the app you are in "front and center" with recent apps arranged along the left side of the screen.

Work down that table before you spend a dollar. If the screen is quiet afterwards and you are fine, you are done.

Where Glowee fits, if anywhere

Full screen and Option-Command-H take the other windows away, and that does not suit every task. Writing from a source, coding against documentation, filling in a form from an email — each needs two or three windows open at once, with only one of them being the one you are in at this moment.

Spotlight was built for exactly that gap: every window stays where you put it, and everything but the one you are in is turned down.

Three settings: Off, Soft and Strong. Take whichever suits, "depending on how busy the screen is."
It follows you. Click a different window and the light moves there.
One chord. ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S works from any app, and Spotlight returns at the level you last used.
Any Mac display. Plain dimming needs no special panel, so a MacBook Air or an external monitor is fine.
Nothing to set up. Glowee is one sun in the menu bar with a single menu behind it: "There is no window, no preferences pane and nothing else to configure."

On a MacBook Pro with a Liquid Retina XDR display, or another EDR display, Glowee can also raise the brightness of the window you are in — Boost Area → Active Window — so the lit window gets brighter while the rest steps back. That half depends on an XDR or EDR panel, so a MacBook Air is out. It also costs something: running a display brighter uses more power and generates more heat, as raising the built-in slider does.

One practical warning before a video call or a shared screen: Spotlight is drawn on the screen, so it is captured. Everyone you share with sees the dimming too. Press ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S beforehand if you would rather they did not.

What Glowee does not do

It blocks no websites and no apps.
It silences nothing. Notifications are a Focus's job.
No timer, no task list, no planner — none of that is in it.
It is not a medical device, not a treatment and not an ADHD aid. Nothing on this page is medical advice.

ADHD focus apps: the questions people ask

What are the best focus apps for people with ADHD?

That depends entirely on what gets in the way, and a page selling one app is the wrong place to rank them. The categories sit in the table above: blockers, timers, body doubling, planners, task management and window dimmers. Glowee is only a candidate if the problem is a crowded screen.

Do any ADHD apps actually work?

That is not a question this page can settle, and Glowee claims nothing about ADHD. The only claim on offer is mechanical: with Spotlight on, everything but your window is dimmed. Whether a quieter screen does anything for you is something seven days of trial will answer faster than any review.

Does it remove the things competing for attention?

It dims them; removing them is a different job. The other windows stay open and reachable, just turned down to Soft or Strong. If you want them gone, full screen or Option-Command-H does that.

Are there free ways to do this?

For most of it, yes, and they are listed above: Focus, the Notifications settings, Reduce motion, hiding the Dock and the menu bar, full screen, Stage Manager and Safari Reader all ship with macOS. Work through them first, then judge what is still bothering you.

How do I set up a Mac for getting work done?

Work down the table: silence notifications with a Focus, switch off badges and sounds for apps that do not matter, hide the Dock and the desktop items, reduce motion. Then decide whether the background windows still need turning down.

Does Glowee work on a MacBook Air?

Spotlight does, on any Mac display. Extra Brightness does not — that half needs an XDR or EDR panel.

Can I try it before paying?

Yes. Glowee works fully for seven days, no account and no card. After that it is a one-time purchase — one Mac, or three Macs on one key, with a 30-day refund.

Put it on your own screen

Glowee is a single menu bar app: under 2 MB, macOS 13 or later, one universal build for Apple silicon and Intel. Nothing is added to the system — no kernel extensions, no background helpers — and quitting it hands the display straight back to macOS. The same feature from three other angles: turning down the inactive windows, keeping a single window in focus and marking the active window.

Download the 7-day trial See how Glowee works