DeskBlur

You sit down to finish a report. Behind the document there's a chat window with a red badge, an inbox with a dozen unread messages, and a browser tab you meant to close yesterday. Nothing is making noise, but your eyes keep drifting.

DeskBlur is a Mac menu-bar app built for that drift. It blurs and dims everything behind the window you're working in, so the active one stays sharp and the rest fades into a soft backdrop. Your apps and documents stay open. Click another window and the focus moves with you.

It's made by Eric Serpi, whose site signs off with "Developed with love in France." The site itself opens in French, with an English switch.

One blur level doesn't suit every app, so intensity can be set per app. You might want a heavy fade behind your writing app and a lighter one behind a spreadsheet you glance at. With more than one display, you choose whether the other screens are blurred or left alone, and the app remembers.

Stage Manager gets its own handling. The first time DeskBlur notices it, the blur switches off and a notification tells you. You can turn it back on, or have the effects pause whenever Stage Manager is active. The app runs on macOS 26 or later.

One detail matters more than it sounds. DeskBlur asks for no Accessibility or Screen Recording permission, which is reassuring in a tool that sits over everything on your screen.

The trial runs seven days with every feature included. When it ends, the effects switch off and your settings are kept. After that it's a one-time purchase with no subscription. The website doesn't print a price and only promises it's shown before the trial starts. The US App Store listed the full version at $2.99 in November 2026.

According to the privacy policy, updated November 4, 2026, there's no account, and the app doesn't capture what's on your screen. It works from the position and order of your windows, on your Mac. A local history of up to 200 technical events helps with troubleshooting, and events older than seven days are removed. If you email support, the message passes through Cloudflare to a Gmail inbox.

If a busy desktop keeps stealing your attention, a week with DeskBlur costs nothing and should tell you whether a quieter screen helps.