PGari Glowee: Mac brightness with window spotlight

Screen record on a Mac, and make it obvious which window you mean

Short answer: To screen record on a Mac you need no extra software: press Shift-Command-5, choose Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, and click Record. The Screenshot app built into macOS does the rest. What it cannot fix is what else lands in the frame — record the whole screen and your notes, your inbox and every other open window go out with the one you meant to talk about. Filling that gap is Glowee's job. Its Spotlight turns down everything bar the window you are in, on any Mac screen, and since the shading is drawn on the display itself it goes into the recording and across a shared screen along with everything else. Glowee records nothing of its own.

What viewers see in a screen record on a Mac with Glowee's Spotlight on: one window at normal brightness, the rest of the screen dimmed

One word about the name first. Apple's Spotlight is the thing you open with Command-Space bar to find apps, files and actions. What follows has nothing to do with it: this is a lighting effect, aimed at whoever is watching you.

How to screen record on a Mac: Apple's own steps

Press Shift-Command-5. An onscreen toolbar appears.
Choose what to record. Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, whose borders you drag to adjust. On macOS Tahoe 26 and later there is also Record Selected Window.
Look at Options before you start. Pick a microphone if your voice is to go in. Ticking Show Mouse Clicks draws a black circle round the pointer on every click. There is a timer, a choice of where the file lands — the desktop unless you say otherwise — and, on supported Macs running macOS Tahoe 26 or later, a choice between SDR (Most Compatible) and HDR for the capture format.
Click Record.
Stop from the Stop button in the menu bar, or with Command-Control-Esc.

The file is a .mov whose name begins with "Screen Recording" and includes the date and time. Click the thumbnail in the corner of the screen if you want to trim it there and then.

QuickTime Player is the other route: File > New Screen Recording, or Control-Command-N, which Apple says opens the same Screenshot tools.

Two boundaries to bear in mind while you plan a tutorial. Apple notes that certain apps — the Apple TV app is its own example — may not let their windows be recorded. And capturing the Mac's own system audio appears as an option only from macOS 27 Golden Gate onwards.

Put a spotlight on the window you are explaining

A recorded walkthrough is nearly always about one window — the spreadsheet, the editor, the browser tab. Everything else is still in shot, and viewers will look at it.

In the developer's own words, "Spotlight dims everything except the window you are in."

Put it on from the sun in the menu bar, or with ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S from inside any app. The same chord takes it off again, so you can change your mind mid-recording without going near a menu.
Choose the depth: Off, Soft or Strong, according to how busy the screen is. It comes back where you left it.
Move to another window and the light moves too, so going from slides to browser and back needs no re-aiming.
Hold it still with Pinned when a stray click would otherwise drag the light away at the worst possible moment.
Any Mac screen, XDR or otherwise, built in or plugged in. A MacBook Air does this perfectly well.

Since the shading is an on-screen layer, a screenshot or a recording picks it up exactly as it picks up a window — leaving nothing to mask once you are in the edit.

Record the screen or a portion, not a single window

Spotlight works on what surrounds your window, so it can only appear in a recording that includes those surroundings. Record the entire screen, or a selected portion wide enough to take in the dimmed area around the window.

The brightness boost stays out of the file

Glowee's other half, Extra Brightness, pushes an XDR display past the macOS slider — and captures leave it out altogether, so footage shot on a lifted screen plays back looking entirely ordinary. It is there for your eyes, not your viewers', and it wants an XDR or other EDR panel: a 14″ or 16″ MacBook Pro from 2021 onwards, for instance. That side of the app is set out in the MacBook Pro brightness guide. Spotlight is the half the audience actually sees.

In a meeting, a seminar or on a projector

Sharing live works the same way round. Leave the slides in an ordinary window instead of going full screen, share the whole screen, then bring Spotlight up: notes, chat and desktop all drop back, and the room watches the slide rather than your notifications. Teaching over a video call with a dozen windows open, the document or whiteboard is the one thing still lit and nobody need ask which. Just as with recording, the effect lives in the area around the window — so share the screen, not a single window.

macOS lends a hand here too. Under System Settings → Notifications sits Show Notifications: when mirroring or sharing the display, which holds them back while you present. And on Apple silicon running macOS Sonoma 14 or later, Presenter Overlay will place you on top of the screen you are sharing on a video call. Both belong to macOS and have nothing to do with Glowee.

A spotlight on a window is not a spotlight on the pointer

A good many of the Mac's presenter tools use the word spotlight, and each means something different by it. Here is how they describe themselves.

Tool	What it does, in its own words
macOS Screenshot	Show Mouse Clicks shows a black circle around the pointer when you click
Mouseposé (Boinx)	Dims the screen and shines a spotlight on the area around the mouse pointer; makes keystrokes visible; highlights mouse clicks
Presentify	Annotate the screen, draw on a whiteboard, highlight the cursor, spotlight or zoom in on key areas
Scribbble	Draws over any app; its Spotlight dims everything except a circle around the cursor; magnify and zoom
Screen Studio	A macOS screen recorder that automatically zooms in on the cursor, enlarges it and smooths its movement
PGari Glowee	Dims everything except the window you are in; the light follows when you click another window

Glowee singles out a window and stops there. No pointer ring, no drawing, no zoom, no recorder. Where the audience has to follow one button or a single line of code, a pointer or annotation tool is the thing to buy; where they have to stay with one window while you work inside it, a window spotlight is. Anyone making tutorials in earnest may well end up with one of each. On the window side of that line, see marking out the window in front and turning down the windows you are not using.

Questions people ask

What is the shortcut to screen record on a Mac?

Shift-Command-5 brings up the Screenshot tools; pick what you want captured and hit Record. Command-Control-Esc brings it to a halt. Coming at it from QuickTime Player instead, Control-Command-N starts a new screen recording.

Can I record my voice at the same time?

You can. Open Options in the Screenshot toolbar and select a microphone before pressing Record.

Will Spotlight show in my screen recording or shared screen?

It will. The shading is an on-screen layer, so a screenshot or a recording takes it in exactly as it takes in a window. The plain brightness boost is the one thing captures leave out.

What does Spotlight do on a Mac?

Two different things carry the name. Apple's is the Mac's search, opened with Command-Space bar to turn up apps, files, actions and the rest. Glowee's is a shading effect: everything but your current window drops back.

How do I turn the spotlight effect off?

Either press ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S or pick Off under Spotlight in Glowee's menu. Quitting the app returns the display to normal.

Does it need a MacBook Pro?

It does not. The shading is ordinary dimming and runs on any screen. Extra Brightness is the part that wants an XDR or other EDR panel.

Is there a free way to try it?

Glowee runs in full for 7 days: every feature, nothing locked, no account. After that it is a one-off purchase — one Mac, or three Macs on one key — and you have 30 days to ask for your money back.

Try it on your next recording

PGari Glowee is a single menu bar app of under 2 MB, for macOS 13 or later, universal across Apple silicon and Intel. Nothing goes into the system: no kernel extensions, no background helpers.

Download the 7-day trial See how Glowee works