Paperman: Your screen as paper
Reduce eye strain
Only for Mac
$7.99
Paperman adds a subtle paper texture to your screen.
Softening contrast, scattering harsh highlights, and making your display feel more like a surface rather than a light source. It doesn't shift your colors. It just changes how your screen feels to look at.
Five paper textures.
Pick the one that suits you.
Each with its own feel:
- Classic Matte: a clean, even matte finish.
- Whisper Weave: an ultra-fine weave for long reading sessions.
- Sunbaked Parchment: warm, aged paper with a soft grain.
- Saddle Linen: a natural woven linen with earthy warmth.
- Painter's Press: a textured cold-press surface with subtle tooth and depth.
Made to fit your day
- Pin up to 4 favorite textures to the control center and switch between them in a tap.
- Set one texture for daytime and another for nighttime, and let Paperman switch automatically.
- Fine-tune intensity per texture - your light and dark settings are remembered separately.
Quiet by design
- Turn Paperman off in specific apps, or have it run only where you want it.
- Pause it on battery, snooze it, or stop it anytime.
- Optional keyboard shortcuts.
more Performance improvements for screenshot monitor to keep Paperman even more lightweight.
2.13.1 Jul 13
Hide Paperman from screenshots, with faster app exceptions.
Hide from screenshots
- A new toggle keeps the Paperman Effect out of your screenshots and screen recordings
Faster app exceptions
- Paperman now applies or lifts much faster when you switch to or from an app on your exceptions list.
- Design polish for App Exceptions settings.
2.13 Jun 30
Mulberry Veil joins the Paperman texture collection, with smarter hotkey controls, and a refined intensity slider.
New Texture to our catalog
- Mulberry Veil - a delicate surface with a deep plum undertone.
Improved hot keys
- Improved keyboard shortcuts with individual enable/disable, rapid multi-hotkey toggling.
Design Polish
- Redesigned Intensity Slider for clarity and more consistency across the app.
2.12 Jun 18
Introducing Vellum Mist, for a more refined reading experience.
New texture to our catalog
- Vellum Mist: a soft, semi-translucent haze that diffuses light like frosted vellum.
2.11 Jun 8
Introducing Painter's Press and pinned textures for faster switching.
New texture to our catalog
- Painter's Press: a textured cold-press surface with subtle tooth and depth.
Pin your favorite textures
- Pin up to 4 favorites to the control center and switch between them in a tap.
- Browse and manage the full collection from Settings → Textures.
Turn off hot keys
- A new switch to disable Paperman's keyboard shortcuts.
Design Polish
- Battery: a clearer "Turn off Paperman on battery" control.
- Intensity feedback: a subtle indicator now shows the texture and level as you adjust intensity.
2.10 Jun 3
Introducing our new texture 'Saddle Linen', along with better keyboard control, and the usual round of small improvements.
New Texture to our catalog
- Saddle Linen: a coarse, natural linen weave with warm earthy tones.
Shortcuts
- New shortcut to cycle through textures (⌥⌘T by default, customizable in Settings).
Accessibility
- Improved keyboard navigation.
- Improved focus ring across all controls.
2.9 May 31
Introducing our brand new texture 'Sunbaked Parchment', along with smarter intensity memory, and a redesigned texture picker.
New texture to our catalog:
- Sunbaked Parchment: a warm, aged paper texture - subtle grain in light mode, deeper warmth in dark mode.
Smarter Intensity
- Each texture now remembers its own intensity separately for light and dark mode.
- Intensity step buttons: click the sun icons beside the slider in the control center to nudge intensity up or down by 1%.
- Settings → Texture: a "Now" indicator shows which theme (Daytime or Nighttime) is currently active.
Design Polish:
- Redesigned texture picker making it easier to browse and switch.
2.8 May 28
Snooze (new), faster shortcuts, and a friendlier home for feedback.
- Snooze: tap the new Snooze button in the control center for a 1, 5, 10, or 15 minute break. Snooze controls also live in Settings → Protection.
- New global shortcut to toggle Snooze with a configurable duration (default ⌥⌘).
- Hot Keys: all hot keys now live in their own settings tab - easier to find and customize.
- Support: a new settings tab to share feedback in one tap or leave a review on the App Store.
Reliability:
- External displays now re-apply Paperman automatically after unplug / replug.
Design Polish:
- Removed a faint hairline at the screen edge.
2.7 May 20
Intel Mac Support
- Paperman now runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs!
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a crash that occurred when downloading the license card.
- Menu bar icon is now properly sized for the macOS status bar.
Design Polish
- Layout and design improvements in About and Sidebar sections.
2.6 May 16
Portrait Display Fix
- Fixed an issue where the paper texture only covered a part of the screen when main display was rotated to portrait.
- Added a small tip in the monitor picker explaining what to do if the texture misbehaves after changing display arrangement.
Settings Panel Polish
- Cleaner icons across Protection and Circadian Rhythm.
- More consistent card layouts between tabs.
- Overall design improvements.
2.5.1 May 14
App Exceptions - Allowlist Mode
- You can now switch App Exceptions to an allowlist: Paperman only activates in the apps you choose, instead of staying active everywhere except your exceptions.
Battery Behavior
- New battery settings let you control how Paperman behaves when you're unplugged.
- Choose to pause automatically below set battery percentage.
Texture Intensity Slider
- Fine-tune how strong your paper texture appears with a new intensity slider in the Texture settings tab.
Improved Shortcut Reliability
- Keyboard shortcuts now use system-wide global shortcut handling, making them more stable and consistent across different apps and workflows.
2.5 May 9
Multi-monitor support improvements:
- Improved overlay covering full screen at launch on external displays when using mixed-DPI setups.
- Improved display arrangement in Settings matching macOS display layout.
2.3.4 May 9
Multi-monitor reliability fixes:
- Overlay windows now recover correctly after sleep, wake, Space transitions, and display reconnects.
- Monitor selections are remembered by screen geometry, so your setup survives display reorders and resolution changes.
2.3.3 May 8
- Early Supporter Badge: New License Card design that proudly displays your early supporter status
- Performance & UI: Extensive refinements to the interface and core performance for a smoother experience
- Stability: Fixed minor issues with theme scheduling
2.3.1 May 1
Paperman brings more customization to your reading experience with a new texture: "Whisper Weave"
- New premium "Whisper Weave", an ultra-fine texture designed for maximum comfort during long reading sessions
- Per-theme texture selection: choose different textures for Light and Dark modes
- Enhanced multi-monitor support and draggable control panel
- Refined theme scheduling and "Auto" mode improvements.
2.1 Apr 27
- Full Multi-Monitor Support: You can now seamlessly select and manage specific external monitors for your overlay displays.
- Customizable Workspaces: Your controls and settings panels are now fully draggable. Even better, they are position-persistent and will remember exactly where you left them on your screen.
- Refreshed Interface: We’ve enhanced the layout of the "About" tab, featuring a cleaner footer and updated design attribution.
- Under the Hood: We've refactored our display logic to make handling primary displays and unconfigured monitors smoother and more reliable.
2.0 Apr 21
Paperman’s controls and settings have been refreshed for a clearer, calmer experience.
This update makes protection easier to manage with a new Dark Green Glass UI, with improved pause/resume behavior, better app-specific disabling, and a cleaner settings layout. The Protection Schedule toggle now directly turns the Paperman effect on or off, and app exceptions are easier to manage when opening controls from another app.
Also includes shortcut improvements, paper sound preference, and general polish throughout the control panel.
1.3 Apr 21
Performance improvements for screenshot monitor to keep Paperman even more lightweight.
more Version 2.13.1 Jul 13
Data Not Collected The developer does not collect any data from this app.