True Tone on Mac: always the right colors in macOS

True Tone and Ambient Light Compensation

True Tone is a term you may have heard of. Ambient light compensation is a little less known. Both ensure that the images on your Mac screen have a natural look, depending on your ambient lighting. We discuss both.

• True Tone: Which Macs?
• Enable True Tone on Mac
• True Tone on external screens
• Ambient light compensation
• Difference with Night Shift

True Tone: On Which Macs?

True Tone can be found on the following Macs:

• MacBook Pro 2018 and newer

• MacBook Air 2019 and newer

• iMac 2020 and newer

True Tone uses ambient light sensors to automatically adjust the colors and brightness of the screen. This technology is also available on recent iPads and iPhones. You can read more about True Tone in our explanation.

Enable True Tone on Mac

You can enable True Tone from the Displays pane of System Settings/System Preferences:

1. Go to  > System Settings (or System Preferences, depending on your macOS version).
2. Click Displays.
3. Check the True Tone box.

Don’t see the True Tone box? Then it is not supported on your Mac. See below under Ambient Light Compensation whether you can use this.

True Tone on external displays

The technique can also be used on external displays, but the possibilities are limited. It only works when you have connected one of the following external displays and the lid of your MacBook is open. This has to do with the fact that the sensor has to see the ambient light. The sensors sit right next to your iSight webcam.

• LG UltraFine 5K Display (approx. €1200)
• LG UltraFine 4K Display (Discontinued))
• Apple Pro Display XDR
• Apple Studio Display

• Apple Thunderbolt Display (discontinued)

The latter only works with an adapter. Some screen accessibility settings, such as inverting colors, grayscale, and increased contrast, can prevent True Tone from functioning.

Ambient Light Compensation: What is it?

Older Macs may also support Ambient Light Compensation. This basically does the same thing but is less advanced. The sensor sits next to your iSight webcam. Apple added Ambient Light Compensation in El Capitan in 2015, but it may not be included in newer versions of macOS, and it may not work on all MacBooks. The models from 2016 and 2017 are in any case not suitable, older versions may be.

The function is especially present for people who work a lot with photos and other visual material. With Ambient Light Compensation, your Mac looks at the lighting in the workspace where you use your Mac and adjusts the display accordingly. As a result, the color red, for example, always looks the same on your Mac screen, regardless of the position of the sun.

Ambient light compensation: always the right contrast

Ambient light compensation ensures that the contrast of your Mac screen is increased as soon as there is a lot of light in a room, for example. It is a useful function for image editors who need to be able to distinguish certain color shades under any circumstances.

Activate Ambient Light Compensation on Mac

Do you want to use this feature? Then you need a suitable Mac with OS X El Capitan or later. Then take the following steps:

1. Open  > System Preferences on the Mac
2. Go to Displays
3. Activate the check mark next to Ambient Light Compensation.

It has long been possible to automatically adjust the brightness of your Mac screen from this settings page. The compensation option is different, because it has an effect on the contrast of your screen.

Don’t see the option? Then unfortunately you cannot use this. It is only available on some older models. Macs with True Tone don’t have the option anyway.

Difference with Night Shift

Both of the features we discussed above are different from Night Shift. The Mac contains another function that automatically changes the color of your screen. Night Shift changes the color tone of your screen as it gets later in the day, making it the opposite of ambient light compensation. The function makes colors warmer, so that you see less blue light in the evening and sleep better. This causes white areas to slowly turn yellow.

Ambient light compensation and True Tone have a different purpose: they want to continue to show colors in the correct way.

You can imitate True Tone with Night Shift if your device does not support it. You can also combine both techniques.