Apple locked brightness adjustment for custom color profiles (presets) on a MacBook Pro 14/16-inch with M1/M2/M3 chips. This option is available only for Apple XDR display & Apple display profiles.

As I understood, custom color profiles (presets) can help people with sensitive eyes use their devices more comfortably (reduce eye strain, sand in the eyes, dry eye, headache, and other symptoms).

After a lot of hours in the internet and attempts to unlock brightness adjustments for custom color profiles, I finally found a solution.

User Flow:
1. Go to https://lunar.fyi/ and download the Lunar app
2. Install the Lunar App.
3. Activate the Pro version (has a free 14-day trial period)
4. Reset the Mac to apply changes after installation.
5. NEXT steps:

  • Set any custom color profile (e.g. Internet & Web (sRGB))

  • Go to the Lunar App in the "Control Center" (line at the top of your display)

  • You will see the text "Brightness is locked by preset"

  • under it click on the name of the preset (e.g. Internet & Web (sRGB))) to open the drop-down menu

  • click ("UNLOCK "Internet & Web (sRGB) )

6. Set the unlocked profile and change the brightness πŸ˜‰

That is it! Now you can adjust brightness for custom color profiles (presets) on a MacBook Pro 14/16-inch with M1/M2/M3 chips.

Tricks that can help with the eye care:
1. https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor - removes dithering from the screen (million of thanks to the author of the app).
Commands to verify the result in the terminal:
ioreg -lw0 | grep -i uniformity & ioreg -lw0 | grep -i enableDither

2. disable font smoothing on Macs> terminal command: defaults -currentHost write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int 0 + restart mac

3. Use x2 scaling resolution

p.s. Please, Support πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡¦ Ukraine and Ukrainians in this Darkest time for us. Piece

    I think I saw an easy way to do so, if you selecting some custom profile and it has locked brightness, in that same selector for color profiles you can click on "Customize" and it will add the currently selected profile and there will be a brightness selection, you can type some numbers.

    PS Slava Ukraini!

      madmozg True, but in your case you can`t change brightness manually, only switch between created presets with different brightness levels. In my case, you can easily change it manually

      7 days later

      It is so strange to see how some brands (LG and HP come to mind) keep unlocking more and more settings in their limited-gamut mode yest, some stubbornly keep everything locked like Asus, I wonder why would Apple go this way. AT least is not dead-locked like Asus/philips and some others do.

      Use BetterDisplay and enable unlocking color profiles instead of the XDR Presets

      dev