Night Shift & Dark Mode Activates at Inconsistent Times or Not At All

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mabjr89 Author

Level 1

10 points

Night Shift & Dark Mode Activates at Inconsistent Times or Not At All

I've been having trouble with Night Shift & the display switching to Dark Mode for the last several weeks.

If I schedule Night Shift to kick on let's say 7pm to 7am, the display does not automatically switch to Dark Mode at 7pm or anytime after that.
- Within system preferences > general > appearance - it states that the automatic feature is based on the Night Shift settings. However, this is not triggered no matter what hours I set the Night Shift to.

If I set Night Shift from Sunset to Sunrise the display dims correctly, but the automated switch from Light to Dark mode is not accurate to the Sunset hours for my local time.
- It has switched to Dark Mode at 8:45pm, 9:00pm, 9:15pm, and sometimes past 10pm.... For reference, my local sunset times are between 8:18pm and 8:26pm for July.

Any ideas why this is going on and how to fix it?

Posted on Jul 25, 2021 11:03 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 26, 2021 11:27 AM in response to mabjr89

Hi mabjr89,

Thanks for posting in the Apple Support Communities forum. We understand your Night Shift and Dark Mode settings aren't working as expected when the designated times hit. In System Preferences > General on your Mac, check if you have the Appearance set to Auto. This will allow the Night Shift settings to take precedence. Also verify your computer's date and time settings match your current time zone.

The links below may help further with setup and explanation of the features.

Use Night Shift on your Mac

Have a great week!

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Answer 2

mabjr89 Author

Level 1

10 points

Jul 26, 2021 6:48 PM in response to barberlives123

Thanks for the reply. All system settings are correct - date/time, region, and automatic switching to Dark/Light enabled.

I think I have the manually scheduled Night Shift working now: 8:30pm-7:00am + clicked the check box. This seems to work properly, shifting the display to warmer light in the evening and then Dark Mode at 8:30pm just fine.

The main problem seems to be the "Sunset to Sunrise" schedule. It just results in random times when it decides to switch to Dark Mode. Perhaps Apple is pulling sunset times incorrectly?

Anyway, not a huge deal but just a minor annoyance. The manually scheduled times work just fine for me.

I followed this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207513

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Night Shift & Dark Mode Activates at Inconsistent Times or Not At All

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