Does MacOS mistakenly (or deliberately) operate scheduled night shift as auto dark Mode?

So first of all, what I want to achieve for my Macbook Pro is similar to what I do in iPhone, i.e. to stage the transition from light mode to dark mode, and then to dark mode with night shift on.


This is possible to be done in iPhone by setting a custom schedule to the appearance schedule and a night shift schedule as follow:




This way, my iPhone would do the following:

  1. Appear in light mode from 7am to 5pm
  2. Appear in dark mode without night shift on from 5pm to 10:50pm
  3. Appear in dark mode with night shift on from 10:50 to 6am
  4. Back to appear in dark mode without night shift on from 6am to 7am before repeating the cycle from point 1


However, the same thing does not seem possible on MacOS. First, because there is no custom schedule for appearance as in the iOS. It only offer "Auto" option which I assume should take the "sunset/sunrise" schedule provided by some system as a reference.


Second, which I think is weird, MacOS seems to treat the night shift schedule as the schedule for switching in between light and dark mode when a specified time is set.


It is frustrating when I want to set the same transition schedule like what I do on my iPhone: it will only change to dark mode at 10:50pm (and I have to suffer to look at light mode from 7pm to 10:50pm 😑) and with the night shift on. I can only have either "light mode" or "dark mode with night shift on".


This is an example when I set the schedule for night shift at 10:50pm with the appearance setting at auto. At 9:31pm, it still set as light mode.


When I set the night shift schedule to 9:30pm (appearance also at auto), at 9:35pm it will change into dark mode with night shift.



The only way I can automate to have a dark mode without night shift, is to auto set the appearance without setting schedule to the night shift, which means I have to manually set the night shift. Or, if I really want the scheduled night shift transition, I set my appearance to dark mode all the time.


So, is this a bug or is it something that Apple deliberately does?

MacBook Pro (M1, 2020)

Posted on Jul 1, 2023 07:43 AM

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Does MacOS mistakenly (or deliberately) operate scheduled night shift as auto dark Mode?

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