PGari Glowee: Mac brightness with window spotlight

An ADHD focus app that does one job, and that job is the screen

Short answer: PGari Glowee turns up in searches for an ADHD focus app, so here is the plain position: it is a screen utility and nothing more. Its Spotlight feature dims everything on the display except the window you are working in, on any Mac, and ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S switches that on and off. That is the entire contribution. It does not block sites, keep time, plan a day, sort a task list or quiet a single notification, and it makes no claim about ADHD, about symptoms or about treatment. If the thing tugging at you is the rest of the screen, this turns the rest of the screen down. Before spending anything, work through the macOS settings below, because a good deal of what makes a Mac noisy can be switched off in System Settings for nothing.

A Mac screen with one window at normal brightness and everything around it dimmed — the single thing this ADHD focus app page says Glowee does

Start with what macOS already lets you switch off

Set ADHD aside for a paragraph and look at the machine. While you work in one window, these things move, blink, count or sit in the corner of your eye. Apple documents a setting for each, and the paths below are from the Irish Mac User Guide for macOS 27; older versions place a few of them elsewhere.

What is competing	The setting	Where it lives
Banners in the top-right corner	A Focus — Do Not Disturb, for instance	Control Center → Focus; or Option-click the date and time in the menu bar
A single app that notifies constantly	Allow notifications, off	System Settings → Notifications → Application Notifications
The red count badges on Dock icons	Badge application icon, off	Same place
Notification sounds	Play sound for notification, off	Same place
The Dock itself	Automatically hide and show the Dock, or Option-Command-D	System Settings → Desktop & Dock
Icons bouncing as apps open	Animate opening applications, off	System Settings → Desktop & Dock
Apps appearing in the Dock uninvited	Show suggested and recent apps in Dock, off	System Settings → Desktop & Dock
The menu bar	Automatically hide and show the menu bar, set to Always, On Desktop Only, In Full Screen Only or Never	System Settings → Menu Bar
Files strewn across the desktop	Show Items, off	System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Desktop & Stage Manager
Desktop widgets	Show Widgets, off; or Dim widgets on desktop	System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Widgets
Interface animation	Reduce motion	System Settings → Accessibility → Motion
GIFs looping in Messages and Safari	Auto-play animated images, off	Same place
The blinking insertion bar	Prefer non-blinking cursor	Same place
Flashing or strobing video	Dim flashing lights	Same place
Transparency layered through macOS	Reduce transparency	System Settings → Accessibility → Display
The clutter wrapped around a web article	Safari Reader	Smart Search field → Show Reader

Two footnotes to that table. Apple attaches its own caution to Dim flashing lights: it "should not be relied upon for the treatment of any medical condition." And a Focus does not have to be switched on by hand — inside System Settings → Focus you can give one a schedule by time, by place or by app, so it arrives without you deciding anything.

Three more removals, all free: the green button at the top-left of a window puts an app in full screen, which Apple sells as working "without desktop distractions"; Stage Manager keeps the working app "front and center" and lines the recent ones along the left edge; and Option-Command-H hides every app but the one in front.

The categories an ADHD focus app search returns

Search for an ADHD focus app and you get six or seven categories of software with almost nothing in common. Here is how each maker describes its own product, in its own words.

Category	Example	Its own description
Site 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"
Single-purpose helpers	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"

Glowee belongs in the last row and in none of the others. Which row is worth your money depends on what actually goes wrong in your working day, and that is a conversation for you and anyone — clinician, coach, colleague — who knows how you work. A page selling one of these is the wrong place to have it settled for you.

Where Glowee sits in that list

Full screen and Option-Command-H work by taking the other windows away, and plenty of real work will not allow it. Writing from a source, checking a draft against a brief, filling a form from an email: two or three windows have to be visible at once, and only one of them is live at any given second.

That is the shape Spotlight was built for. Every window stays exactly where you put it, and everything except the live one is turned down.

Three positions — Off, Soft, Strong. Pick by how crowded the screen is that day.
It follows your click. Move into another window and the light moves with you.
One chord. ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S from inside any app; it comes back at the setting you left it on.
No setup step. Choosing Soft or Strong starts Glowee if it was off.
Everything outside the window goes down, the menu bar and the Dock included.
Any Mac screen. Plain dimming needs no particular panel, so a MacBook Air or a second-hand monitor is fine.
Nothing to configure. One sun in the menu bar, one menu, no preferences pane, no window.

On a MacBook Pro with a Liquid Retina XDR display, or another EDR display, Glowee can also raise the brightness of just that one window — Boost Area → Active Window — so the live window climbs while the rest steps back. Because Spotlight needs one window to light, switching it on while Boost Area is set to Whole Screen moves Boost Area to Active Window by itself. That half cannot work on a MacBook Air, and running a display brighter uses more power and generates more heat, exactly as pushing the built-in slider does.

One practical warning before a call: Spotlight is drawn on the screen, so a shared screen or a recording carries the dimming with it. Whoever is watching sees what you see. Throw ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S beforehand if you would rather they saw an ordinary screen.

What Glowee will not do for you

No site or app blocking.
No control over notifications — that is a Focus.
No timer, no task list, no calendar, no planner.
It is not a medical device, not a treatment and not an aid for ADHD. Nothing written here is medical advice.

Questions that come up about ADHD focus apps

Which focus apps are best for people with ADHD?

A page that sells one of them has no business ranking them. The categories are in the table above; Glowee is worth considering only if a crowded screen is the specific problem.

Do any of these apps actually work?

This page cannot answer that and does not try. What can be stated is mechanical: switch Spotlight on and every window except the one you are working in is turned down. Whether a quieter screen helps you is something the 7-day trial will tell you faster than any review.

Am I struggling with distraction, or with getting started?

Different problems, different shelves. Glowee only addresses what is visible around the window while you are already working. Starting, planning and time-keeping belong to the other categories above.

Does it take things off the screen?

No. It dims them. Every other window stays open and one click away. Removal is full screen or Option-Command-H.

Is there a free way to do most of this?

A surprising amount, yes. Focus, the Notifications settings, Reduce motion, hiding the Dock and the menu bar, full screen, Stage Manager and Safari Reader are all part of macOS and all listed above. Exhaust them first.

Does it run on a MacBook Air?

Spotlight does, on any Mac screen. The extra brightness does not; that needs an XDR or EDR panel.

Free or paid?

Free for 7 days with every feature unlocked, no account and no card. After that a one-off purchase — one Mac, or three Macs on one key — with a 30-day refund.

See it on your own screen

PGari Glowee is a single menu bar app, under 2 MB, for macOS 13 or later on Apple silicon and Intel. No kernel extensions, no background helpers; quit it and the display goes back to exactly where it was. The same feature from other angles: dimming inactive windows, keeping one window in focus and highlighting the active window.

Download the 7-day trial See how Glowee works