Font Smoothing has long been a feature of MacOS designed to improve the readability of on-screen text. It achieves this by using anti-aliasing to subtly blend the edges of fonts with the background. The goal is to reduce the jagged appearance of text, and in modern usage, enabling Font Smoothing generally makes text appear slightly bolder, while disabling it can make text look thinner or less pronounced. Preferences for one setting over the other often depend on the type of display being used, and some users may find it beneficial to manually adjust or even disable font smoothing entirely. However, recent versions of MacOS no longer include an easy toggle for this within System Settings.

For those using macOS Sequoia, MacOS Ventura, macOS Sonoma, MacOS Big Sur, or macOS Monterey, there’s a simple and free tool called “Font Smoothing Adjuster” that allows you to easily enable or disable font smoothing.

• Download Font Smoothing Adjuster from the developer’s website (or access the project via its Github page here)

Although adjusting font smoothing could be considered an advanced tweak, the app keeps things straightforward—offering only two options: enable or disable.

Please note that any changes made through the app will require a system restart in order for the new font rendering settings to take effect.

It's sometimes difficult to describe exactly what the visual difference looks like, but the image below—taken from a previous article—helps illustrate the change. Depending on your display, you might notice a clear distinction between the two settings, or you might barely see any difference at all:

If you don’t observe a noticeable improvement or change, it’s probably best to leave Font Smoothing enabled as it is by default.

The ability to tweak font smoothing settings dates back to earlier versions of MacOS, and in fact we covered how to do this more than 15 years ago (how time flies!). Interestingly, many of the older Terminal-based methods still work today, although in newer versions of MacOS they tend to be limited to simply turning the feature ON or OFF.

For a deeper understanding of how font smoothing works, refer to this detailed explanation. While this is a niche and somewhat technical adjustment, certain users with LCD, OLED, LED, 4K, or 5K displays might prefer having font smoothing disabled or enabled. Thanks to this user-friendly app, making such a change is now very easy—no need to open Terminal and enter commands manually.

If you're curious about how fonts are rendered on your Mac, give this app a try. Toggle the font smoothing option, restart your Mac, and see how the text appears to you. If you’re not satisfied with the results, simply revert to the default setting and reboot again.

What’s your take on Font Smoothing in MacOS? Do you keep it on, or do you prefer to turn it off? Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below!

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