The fill light
MiniPrompter draws a band of light around the edges of your screen. It is a fill light. In a dim room it fills in the shadows on your face and makes a real difference to how you look on camera.
It lifts shadows; it is not a ring light
A computer display tops out at around 500 nits. A real ring light is many times brighter. So this will soften the shadows and lift your face out of the gloom, and it will not light you like a studio.
Two things follow from that, and both are the opposite of what you would guess:
Width matters more than brightness. Because the screen cannot get brighter, the only lever left is area. A wide band puts far more light on your face than a narrow bright one. The starting width is deliberately generous.
The warmth number reads warmer than it sounds. Screens are built to show daylight, so a "warm" number rendered on one looks warmer still. 4000 K, which sounds like a pleasant warm white, comes out visibly peachy. Around 5500 K is where it reads as clean white. If you are chasing a warm look, come down slowly.
Adjusting it
While the script window is in front:
- ← and → — fill light brightness
- ⌘← and ⌘→ — warmth
Everything else is in Settings › Fill Light: width, corner rounding, and a "Fine tuning" section holding the values that shape how the fill light falls off at its edges. Those came out of a long evening with a colour-calibrated monitor. The starting values are good. If you take them somewhere strange, Settings › General › Reset All Settings brings them back.
The gap that follows your pointer
A wide band covers window title bars and buttons. The fill light is click-through, so you can still press what is underneath it, but aiming at something you cannot see is no use.
So the fill light opens a soft hole around your pointer whenever it comes near. Move away and it closes. Only the part near your pointer dims, which matters: the rest of the perimeter stays lit, so the light on your face does not pulse every time you reach for something.
Set the size, or switch it off, in Settings › Fill Light.
The menu bar and the Dock
By default the fill light stops short of both. You keep the clock, the recording indicator, your menu bar apps, and the ability to see which apps are running.
Cover the menu bar and the Dock in Settings › Fill Light gives that space to the fill light instead. More light, less of your Mac.
Turning it off
If your Mac already lights the screen edges for you, or you just want the script without the glow, switch Enable Fill Light off. It is in three places, whichever is nearest:
- the MiniPrompter icon in the menu bar
- the View menu
- Settings › Fill Light
That leaves the words and takes the fill light away. Fill Light Only, right beside it, does the opposite: the fill light stays and the words go.
If the fill light is not there at all
On an Apple silicon Mac running macOS 26.2 or later, Apple has its own Edge Light that comes on during video calls. When it is running, MiniPrompter stands aside rather than lighting you twice.
That is almost always the answer when the band is missing. Settings › Fill Light says so on screen when it is happening, and the switch there — Step aside for Apple's Edge Light — turns the behaviour off if you prefer MiniPrompter's version.
You might, and here is the honest comparison. Apple's is face-tracked and knows where you are. MiniPrompter's gives you an exact colour temperature, changes while you read, coordinates its shape with the script window, and does not fade the whole band every time you move the mouse. It also works on Intel Macs, on older versions of macOS, and when no camera is running at all.
Also check: Enable Fill Light in the menu-bar icon, the View menu or Settings › Fill Light, and that the brightness is not at its lowest.