Monocle - A sleek, modern take on window dimming for macOS
Monocle is a sleek, minimalist app that removes distractions by blurring everything but your active window, giving you the focus you need. No window juggling—just the task at hand, with everything else calmly waiting.
It’s like noise-canceling for your screen.
Replies
@heyiamdk I love how this is going to help so many people! Grats on the launch 🚀
Thank you, Samuel!
Hey...Chrome blocked it as a suspicious download. Looks cool tho.
Hey Christopher, that’s probably because I distribute Monocle as a .app (properly notarized by Apple!) instead of a .dmg.
Working on a fix right now! :) Will keep you posted!
Christopher, could you download it again, please?
@heyiamdk downloaded again and yes, the dmg had no problems. Great app! Love the idea. My opinion, the app should default to deep instead of ambient, but that is just me.
@chriserickson Great to hear it’s working fine now! Thanks for the feedback—I’ve already received some valuable input from other users too. I’ll think about the next steps and start implementing them next week. Stay tuned!
@heyiamdk @chriserickson +1 on this -- it's the first setting I changed and don't see a reason to change it back.
Very innovative idea and concept. Is there a Windows version available?
Glad you like it, James! To be honest, there are currently no plans to release it for Windows.
I honestly love the notion that it's noise cancelling for the screen, why didn’t this exist sooner, it means I might actually be able to work when I'm hungover!!
Your minimalist, distraction free approach is ideal for the sort of deep work sessions that I'm trying to achieve - goodbye, accidental Twitter doom-scrolling.
Best of luck w/the launch Dominik!
Appreciate that Sam!
Distractions are everywhere nowadays, so creating a space for real focus felt like a no-brainer. Hope it makes those deep work sessions (and rough mornings 😆) a little easier. Thanks for the support!
Awesome Dominik! It looks super cool. Happy to see projects like Monocle launching here and wish you all the best!
Thanks a lot! @german_merlo1 🙌
Hi Dominik, I just purchased Monocle, it’s really cool and perfect for my work.
I have a few suggestions: First, I would love to see a keyboard shortcut to toggle between Ambient and Deep mode. Second, I often use quickpad software like Tot, and I generally prefer this kind of quickpad app to display with the blurring effect alongside other apps. However, adding it to the Excluded apps doesn’t meet my expectations.
Thank you for your work, and I wish you the best!
Hey @yixin_shi! So glad you’re finding the app useful and thanks for grabbing a license!
1. Yes, a global keyboard shortcut to switch between Ambient and Deep mode is on the way!
2. About your quickpad workflow—are you thinking of a way to group apps together and lock them somehow? I actually explored that a while back but couldn’t find a UX I was happy with, so it went to the backlog. Let me take another look at it!
@heyiamdk Thanks for the response!
Regarding the quickpad workflow, I think it's less about grouping apps and more about certain apps having a "work- together" use case with any other apps. For example, I might use Tot while coding, browsing, or writing, so it needs to work fluidly alongside various applications.
I've found that "always-on-top" apps like Raycast Notes achieve this well. I tried using TopIt to keep Tot on top, but that state isn't persistent when I open and close Tot repeatedly.
I'm not sure if adding an "always-work-with-others" app type is feasible, but that's the general idea. Anyway, it's just my personal use case, and I can use Raycast Notes as an alternative, so it's not urgent.
@yixin_shi thanks so much for the explanation, let me think how to approach this type of behavior!
Very cool idea! Any chance this could work on macOS 13.7 (Ventura). It doesn't seem to run.
Hi@moaraji, Monocle runs on macOS 14.6+, but I’ll check how much work it’d take to support older versions. Stay tuned!
looks amazing, but I can't get it to work on my m3 15" air. not sure if its another app is overriding it
I'm so sorry ot hear that Matthew! You say it won't launch at all? No Monocle icon in the menu bar, no crash, no errors?
Hi!@mattmetrovich I believe this beta version will work for you now if still interested in: https://heyiam.dk/updates/Monocle-beta.dmg
Wow... amazing app Dominik! Purchased 🎉
Happy to hear you like it and thanks so much for purchasing the license!!@ari_alkalay1
I just bought this but it doesn't work on my version of Mac OS. I can't upgrade due to other programs I use for music production not being ready. Bummed.
@jose_de_loza I’m sorry to hear that! Yeah, as stated on the product page, Monocle requires macOS 14.6 or newer. I might consider making it compatible with macOS 13, but it would require a different approach to handling blur. I’m not sure if it’s worth the effort, but it’s something I’m thinking about.
Tried it for a new hours. Instant buy. Thanks Dominik for this little gem (and fair priced !) :)
Happy to hear you like it! @ymouhoun thanks so much for your support! :)