Click-through by design
Every click, drag, scroll, gesture and keystroke goes straight to the app beneath.
A tactile layer for macOS
Make your screen feel less like glass.
PaperVeil lays a quiet, click-through paper grain over every display—softening harsh contrast and the perfectly uniform backlight glow without getting between you and your work.
Native macOS utility · Local only · No screen recording
TextureLaid Cotton
Schedule›
Global shortcut⌃⌥P
18 distinct paper textures
Near-zero idle CPU
Every click passes through
Made for long screen days
A softer surface can feel easier on your eyes.
PaperVeil takes a different route from blue-light filters. Instead of shifting the entire display toward orange, its subtle matte grain breaks up the screen’s glassy uniformity and gently softens bright highlights and hard contrast.
That can make long reading and writing sessions feel calmer and less visually fatiguing, while keeping text crisp and colors recognizable.
Comfort varies by person and display. PaperVeil is a visual-comfort utility, not a medical treatment.Present, never in the way
Surface texture without interface friction.
PaperVeil is built like a good sheet of paper: felt, not noticed. It stays above your work visually and completely out of the input path.
One layer, every display
A seamless, scale-aware texture follows connected displays, Spaces, and full-screen apps.
Quiet when you need it
Pause by application, set daily hours, or toggle instantly with a global shortcut.
Actually lightweight
A tiny cached tile is repeated by macOS. No continuous animation and near-zero CPU at rest.
Notes on visual comfort
Why a softer surface may feel better.
PaperVeil is guided by research into matte display surfaces, glare, and screen-use ergonomics. The studies below inform the idea; they do not directly test PaperVeil itself.
Honest by design.PaperVeil makes no medical claims. It is a visual-comfort utility, not a treatment for eye strain or any health condition.
Matte surfaces can ease visual fatigue.
A study comparing simulated electronic-paper treatments found that matte, anti-glare surfaces improved legibility and reduced reported visual fatigue under tested lighting conditions.
Read the research Lin et al., Applied Ergonomics (2009)Reflections add visual work.
Research on computer use identifies screen glare and reflections as meaningful contributors to ocular complaints. PaperVeil cannot remove physical reflections, but its irregular grain is designed to make bright, uniform screen areas feel less stark.
Read the research Agarwal et al., JCDR (2013)Comfort and blinking are connected.
In a controlled display study, an anti-reflection film preserved blink rate and reduced eye-strain symptom scores. That evidence concerns a physical film, not PaperVeil, so I treat it as design context, not proof of a medical benefit.
Read the research Miyake-Kashima et al., Cornea (2005)The paper library
Eighteen surfaces.
One quiet mood.
From nearly invisible rice paper to deep ink stone, each texture combines its own tint wash, light and dark grain, layered noise, and optional weave.
Soft Wove
A smooth, finely milled grain that takes the glassy edge off bright windows without calling attention to itself.
Rice Paper
Feather-light fibres and a nearly invisible wash for the gentlest possible change to your screen.
Laid Cotton
A quiet ribbed cotton surface that gives reading and writing a crisp, tactile rhythm.
Newsprint
Cool gray pulp with a familiar daily paper softness, made for text heavy work and long articles.
Cold Press
A toothy watercolor paper grain with enough depth to calm broad white canvases and creative tools.
Artist Canvas
A coarse woven surface that adds visible structure and the grounded feel of stretched studio canvas.
Foxed Amber
Warm, age speckled paper that turns late night writing into something closer to an old manuscript.
Bookcloth
A sturdy binder’s linen weave with restrained warmth, like the cover of a well kept hardback.
Recycled Kraft
Rough brown fibres and earthy variation for a rugged surface that feels natural and unpolished.
Plum Kozo
Delicate Japanese-paper fibres beneath a deep plum wash. It's soft, atmospheric, and quietly dramatic.
Rose Quartz
A fine mineral grain with a muted blush tint that brings gentle warmth to neutral interfaces.
Sage Press
A calm botanical wash over pressed paper grain, suited to focused planning and unhurried work.
Nordic Sky
Pale blue paper with a cool, airy finish for a workspace that feels open and lightly diffused.
Frost Glassine
A translucent looking haze that softens highlights like light passing through frosted vellum.
Felt Side
Dense, close fibres create a muted and meditative surface for distraction free reading.
Ink Stone
Fine charcoal grain over ground-ink black, giving dark interfaces a precise analog texture.
Midnight Slate
A cool blue black stone grain that settles bright details into a quieter nocturnal workspace.
Espresso
A warm near-black roast with subtle organic noise, made for cozy dark-mode sessions.
Your screen, on your terms
Set it once. Let it disappear.
Exclude appsPause automatically for games, video, design, or anything you choose.
Keep hoursUse daily ranges, including overnight schedules, with wake and time-zone awareness.
Move quicklyToggle globally or automate with Apple Shortcuts and URL commands.
Daily schedulePaper hours
Start8:30 AM
End10:00 PM
Active now
Private by construction
Your screen stays yours.
PaperVeil never reads pixels, text, filenames, browsing activity, or app content. There is no account, analytics profile, cloud sync, or server processing.
- No Screen Recording permission
- No Accessibility permission
- Preferences stay in local macOS storage
- Standard capture exclusion where macOS honors it
PaperVeil 0.1.0 local beta
A calmer surface is one click away.
Built for macOS 13 and later. Apple silicon and Intel supported.
Download PaperVeil beta 3.5 MBLocal testing build
This beta is ad-hoc signed, not yet Developer ID signed or notarized. macOS may show a Gatekeeper warning, so install it only if you understand and accept that limitation. A notarized public beta will replace it after Apple signing is configured.
SHA-256 b084355acdc90953598bdc09e1ce9dd148a8eaa6cbad224cbb3e9c9d15d7156f