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Frequently Asked Questions

Everything we get asked, answered straight. If something here doesn't quite cover your situation, drop us a line and we'll get back to you.

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Night Shift provides built-in warmth and scheduling. Tap Zap adds a red-screen setting, a separate software brightness slider, and PWM-Safe hardware-brightness control on supported displays. Neither a warm tint nor a red RGB setting proves zero emitted blue light; the spectrum depends on the display. See our Night Shift comparison for the practical differences.
macOS Accessibility Color Filters include tint and intensity controls and may be enough if you want a red screen. Tap Zap offers a different workflow with presets, a separate software brightness slider, and hardware-brightness control where supported. Neither option is a sleep treatment or a guarantee of zero blue optical output.
Windows Night light offers built-in warmth and scheduling. Tap Zap adds a red-screen setting, a separate software brightness slider, and PWM-Safe hardware-brightness control on supported displays. A tint alone does not establish whether a panel uses PWM, and a 100% hardware setting does not universally remove modulation.
f.lux offers automatic warmth, dimming, and special color modes including Darkroom. Tap Zap offers its own compact warmth-and-brightness workflow and a PWM-Safe hardware-brightness lock on supported displays. Compare the features you need; neither app can guarantee flicker-free output on every display.
Iris offers color and software brightness controls with a broader set of modes and settings. Tap Zap focuses on two sliders, three presets, and one ZAP button, plus PWM-Safe hardware-brightness control where supported. Choose by workflow and compatibility; software dimming does not guarantee a particular optical waveform.
Best to pick one. All of these tools are reaching for the same display controls, and stacking them on top of each other tends to produce unpredictable colors and double-warming. Turn off Night Shift, Night Light, or any other warming filter before using Tap Zap and you'll get cleaner results.
The strongest warmth setting reduces the green and blue RGB channels to zero in the requested display transform. That produces a red-screen appearance on compatible display paths. It does not measure the emitted spectrum or establish a sleep or health benefit. Move the warmth slider up if you prefer amber or neutral colors.
0K is Tap Zap's label for the red end of the warmth slider, not a physical color temperature. At that setting the requested green and blue channel values are zero. The light a physical display emits still depends on its panel, profile, and active display mode; only an optical measurement can establish its spectrum.
A red tint is a display preference, not a safety certification. Tap Zap has not been shown in a clinical trial to prevent eye strain or improve sleep. Comfort depends on brightness, viewing conditions, and individual sensitivity. If symptoms persist, seek advice from a qualified eye-care professional.
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) controls brightness by varying how long a light source is on during each cycle. Some displays use it; others use different dimming methods or combine methods. Its behavior can vary with brightness, display mode, and content. A phone-camera band pattern can suggest temporal variation but cannot identify PWM or certify safety.
PWM-Safe Mode holds supported hardware brightness at 100% while Tap Zap dims the picture in software. This may reduce brightness-control PWM on some displays, but maximum brightness does not disable all modulation on every LCD or OLED. Availability depends on the display and connection. The mode name is not a safety certification; physical flicker needs display-specific measurement.
Holding an LCD backlight at maximum can use more energy than lowering hardware brightness, even when software makes the picture look dim. The size of the change depends on the display, content, and other settings. PWM-Safe is optional; choose a comfortable brightness and verify your display rather than assuming maximum brightness removes flicker.
On Mac, the underlying API only talks to Apple-controlled displays — most third-party HDMI/DisplayPort monitors don't expose this kind of control. On Windows, Tap Zap reaches external monitors through DDC/CI, which most modern displays support but some budget panels don't. If your external doesn't show up as controllable, the toggle hides itself and the standard brightness reminder appears instead.
Tap Zap applies its color controls to compatible connected display paths. Hardware-brightness control has separate requirements: Apple-controlled displays on Mac, or working DDC/CI support on Windows. Display, cable, dock, driver, HDR, and reference-mode behavior can differ. Check warmth, brightness, OFF, and wake on each screen; some M5 Pro/Max configurations remain unresolved.
Tap Zap includes Auto Schedule controls. Check the settings in your installed version for available timing options, and verify transitions on your setup. A schedule changes display settings; it does not establish a clinical sleep benefit.
MacOS 10.13+ has a separate legacy test build; the current Mac installer requires MacOS 12+. Contact us for the older-Mac build. Windows requires Windows 10 or later. Some M5 Pro/Max display configurations remain unresolved, with no confirmed fix or completion date. Linux is a separate free experimental beta with session-specific setup and limitations. A Pop!_OS 24.04 COSMIC Wayland prototype is also available, VM-tested and requiring its separate TAP ZAP COSMIC (prototype) login session; physical hardware remains unvalidated. See the platforms and download pages before buying. Tap Zap does not run on iOS or Android.
The Mac app is a universal binary for Apple Silicon and Intel on macOS 12 or later. A native binary does not guarantee every display path works: some M5 Pro/Max configurations remain unresolved, with no confirmed fix or completion date. Check your exact Mac, macOS version, and connected displays before relying on it.
Sandboxed App Store apps can't touch the system gamma tables or the private display APIs that Tap Zap needs to do its job. Same reason f.lux isn't there. Distributing outside the App Store also lets us push updates the day they're ready, without going through review.
No, and there isn't a clear path to one. Mobile operating systems lock down the color and brightness controls Tap Zap relies on. iOS has its own Night Shift built in, and that's about as far as you can go without a jailbreak. If that ever changes, we'll be the first to ship it.
No on both platforms. On Mac, the filter is applied as a final display overlay, so screenshots, screen recordings, and anything you share on Zoom or Google Meet look completely normal to everyone else. On Windows, the same is true — screenshots come out clean, and most screen-share and recording tools capture the un-tinted frame because Tap Zap's color effect is applied at the display compositor level. If you ever want to be absolutely sure before sharing, hit the OFF preset and the screen reverts instantly.
Hit the OFF preset, or click the ZAP button to toggle the filter off. The screen reverts to its true colors instantly — no delay, no logout, no restart. When you're done, click again and you're back where you were. A lot of photographers and editors run Tap Zap during regular hours and just toggle it off when they sit down to grade.
Tap Zap works through system display controls, but fullscreen, HDR, games, drivers, and reference modes can bypass or override adjustments. Verify your actual app and display combination, including OFF and restoration; universal coverage is not guaranteed.
Three. One purchase covers your laptop, your desktop, and one more machine if you have it. You can deactivate a device from inside the app at any time to free up a slot, so swapping computers down the line isn't a problem.
Download the app, open it, and paste your license key into the LICENSE KEY field. That's it — no second purchase, no website login. Your key covers 3 devices. If you can't find your key, search your email for "Dodo Payments" or "Your Tap Zap License Key."
Not at the moment. What we offer instead is a 30-day no-questions-asked refund — buy it, use it for a few weeks, and if it's not for you we'll send your money back. We'd rather you actually try the app on your own setup than poke at a hobbled trial version.
Email support from the address you bought with and we'll resend it. Your original purchase email from DodoPayments also has the key in it, so check that inbox first if you still have it.
Because a blue light filter shouldn't be a recurring charge. You buy Tap Zap once, you get every future update for free, and that's the end of it. No account, no auto-renew, nothing to cancel later when you forget you signed up.
Almost none. Roughly every 90 days the app checks in with the license server to confirm your key is still valid — that request contains your license key and a device ID, and nothing else. No analytics, no telemetry, no account, no email tracking, no ads. The app works completely offline most of the time.
Open Tap Zap, click the gear icon to open Settings, and tap COPY FEEDBACK FOR SUPPORT at the bottom. That copies an email-ready bundle to your clipboard with your platform, version, display info, and a recent event log — but never your license key. Paste it into an email to [email protected] and we'll have everything we need to help.
Windows puts a limit on how strongly any app can tint the screen, and on some older computers that limit blocks Tap Zap's stronger settings while letting mild ones through — so DAY might work while EVENING and NIGHT do nothing. When Tap Zap detects this, a red bar appears at the bottom reading COLORS BLOCKED BY WINDOWS. CLICK TO FIX. Click it, approve the Windows permission prompt, and restart your computer (use Restart, not Shut down). After the restart, the full warmth and brightness range works. Most machines never run into this — it only affects older Windows graphics hardware.
It means Windows is enforcing its built-in limit on screen tinting, which stops Tap Zap's stronger settings from taking effect. The fix changes one Windows setting that removes the limit — the same well-known fix f.lux uses for the same problem. It's safe and reversible. Because it's a system-wide setting, Windows asks for administrator permission and a restart afterwards. If you install Tap Zap with administrator rights, it applies this automatically and you never see the message.
Legacy Mode is a compatibility path for older graphics hardware that can't use Tap Zap's modern tinting method. Tap Zap switches to it automatically when it detects that hardware, so you usually don't need to think about it — though you can toggle it manually in Settings. Legacy Mode is the path that can run into the Windows color limit above, which is why the one-click fix exists.
PWM-Safe Mode locks your screen's hardware brightness at 100%, then verifies the lock took. Right after startup the brightness controls can be slow to wake, so you may briefly see WAITING FOR DISPLAY before it locks — that's normal and resolves on its own. If you see DISPLAY WON'T HOLD 100%, your monitor isn't accepting the lock (common on external monitors without software brightness control); Tap Zap keeps your setting but stops fighting the display. On laptops the switch reads BUILT-IN PANEL LOCKED AT 100% to make clear it's controlling the built-in screen, not an attached monitor.

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