PGari Glowee: Mac brightness with window spotlight

Screen record on a Mac and leave no doubt about which window matters

Short answer: To screen record on a Mac you need nothing extra: press Shift-Command-5, choose Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, and press Record. The awkward part comes afterwards, when you watch it back and find the viewer's eye wandering over your inbox, your calendar and three other tabs while you talk about one window. PGari Glowee handles that half. Spotlight dims everything except the window you are in, on any Mac display, and because it is drawn onto the screen it is captured in the recording and in a shared screen exactly as your audience will see it. Glowee records nothing itself; it only changes what the recorder picks up.

What a viewer sees in a screen record on a Mac with Glowee's Spotlight running: one window at normal brightness, the rest of the screen turned down

One naming caution first. Apple uses Spotlight for the search you open with Command-Space bar, "the fastest way to find anything on your Mac." The Spotlight on this page is a lighting effect with the same name and no relation.

How to screen record on a Mac with the Screenshot app

Apple's own steps, from its Irish support page.

Shift-Command-5. A toolbar appears across the screen.
Pick the area. Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, whose borders you drag with the mouse or trackpad. macOS Tahoe 26 and later adds a third option, Record Selected Window.
Open Options first. Choose a microphone if your voice should be in it. From macOS 27 Golden Gate there is Include System Audio for the Mac's own sound. Show Mouse Clicks draws a black circle around the pointer at each click. You can set a countdown, change the save location — the desktop by default — and, on supported Macs running macOS Tahoe 26 or later, pick SDR or HDR as the capture format.
Record.
Stop from the menu bar, or with Command-Control-Esc.

The file is a .mov named "Screen Recording" with the date and time. A thumbnail appears in the corner when you stop; click it to trim before it saves.

QuickTime Player leads to the same place: File > New Screen Recording, or Control-Command-N, which Apple says opens the Screenshot tools.

Two limits Apple states outright. Some apps, the Apple TV app among them, may not let you record their windows. And system audio is a macOS 27 option, not something older versions offer.

Light the window you are talking about

A recorded walkthrough almost always concerns one thing: the spreadsheet, the editor pane, the single browser tab. Everything else on the desktop is in the frame anyway, and the viewer has no way of knowing which part to watch until you say so.

Spotlight settles it before you open your mouth.

Start it from the sun in the menu bar or with ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S from any app. The same chord stops it, so you can change your mind halfway through a recording without going near a menu.
Choose the depth: Off, Soft or Strong, by how busy the screen is. It comes back at whatever level you used last.
Move and it moves. Click into another window and the light follows, so switching from slides to browser and back needs no adjustment.
Or fix it in place with Pinned, so a stray click mid-take does not send the light somewhere else.
Any Mac display, built in or external, XDR or not. A MacBook Air is perfectly fine for this.

Spotlight is an on-screen layer, so screenshots and screen recordings take it in like any other window and there is nothing to mask in the edit.

Why a single-window capture defeats it

The whole effect lives in what surrounds your window, so a recording that contains only the window contains none of it. Record the entire screen, or draw a selected portion wide enough to include the shaded area around the window.

Extra Brightness is invisible to your audience

Glowee's other feature lifts an XDR panel past the macOS brightness slider, and it is left out of captures. A recording made on a boosted screen plays back looking entirely ordinary — the extra light is for your eyes while you work and does nothing at all for the viewer. It also needs an XDR or other EDR display, such as a MacBook Pro 14″ or 16″ from 2021 or later; the MacBook Pro brightness guide sets out which panels qualify. For an audience, Spotlight is the part that counts.

Live sharing: a meeting, a lecture, a projector

The same applies when nothing is being recorded at all. Keep the slide deck in an ordinary window rather than full screen, share the screen, and switch Spotlight on. The notes, the chat window and the desktop behind it drop back, so a room or a call follows the slide instead of reading your notifications over your shoulder. Teaching online through a shared screen full of windows, the document or the whiteboard stays lit and nobody has to ask which one you mean.

The same rule as for recording applies: the dimming lives around the window, so share the screen rather than a single window. And if you would rather notifications did not arrive mid-share, macOS has its own control for that in System Settings → Notifications → Show Notifications: when mirroring or sharing the display.

On a Mac with macOS Sonoma 14 or later, Apple's Presenter Overlay can additionally place you on top of the screen you are sharing during a video call. That is a macOS feature and has nothing to do with Glowee.

What each presenter tool means by spotlight

Presenter tools borrow the word freely and mean different things by it. Each line below is that maker's own description of its own product.

Tool	What its own site says
macOS Screenshot	Show Mouse Clicks rings the pointer with a black circle on every click
Mouseposé (Boinx)	Dims the screen and shines a spotlight on the area around the mouse pointer; visualises clicks; makes keystrokes visible
Presentify	Annotate the screen, draw on a whiteboard, highlight the cursor, and spotlight or zoom in on key areas
Scribbble	"Dim everything except a circle around your cursor"; magnify and zoom
Screen Studio	A macOS screen recorder that zooms in on the cursor automatically and smooths its movement; records webcam, microphone and system audio
PGari Glowee	Dims everything except the window you are in, and the light follows when you move to another window

Five of those six follow the pointer. Glowee follows the window, and does not draw, zoom or record. If the thing your viewer must watch is a single button or one line of code, reach for a pointer or annotation tool. If it is a window you will be working inside for the next four minutes, reach for a window spotlight. A careful tutorial maker may well keep one of each. The window side is set out further in highlighting the active window and dimming inactive windows.

Common questions

What is the keyboard shortcut to screen record on a Mac?

Shift-Command-5 opens the Screenshot tools; Command-Control-Esc stops the recording. From QuickTime Player, Control-Command-N starts a new one.

Can I capture my voice at the same time?

Yes. Open Options in the Screenshot toolbar and select a microphone before you press Record. System audio is a separate option and needs macOS 27 Golden Gate or later.

Will Spotlight show up in the recording?

Yes. It is an on-screen layer, so screenshots and screen recordings capture it like any window. The brightness boost, by contrast, never reaches the file.

What does Spotlight do on a Mac, exactly?

Two answers, unfortunately. Apple's Spotlight searches the Mac from Command-Space bar. Glowee's Spotlight dims everything but the window you are in.

How do I switch the spotlight effect off?

⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S, or choose Off under Spotlight in the menu. Quitting Glowee returns the display to normal in any case.

Must it be a MacBook Pro?

No. Spotlight is nothing but dimming, so any display will do. Only Extra Brightness requires an XDR or other EDR panel.

Is a trial available?

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

Use it on your next recording

PGari Glowee is a single menu bar app, under 2 MB, for macOS 13 or later on Apple silicon and Intel. No kernel extensions and no background helpers.

Download the 7-day trial See how Glowee works