Owlfish
Night light and extra dim for Sailfish OS.
Easier on the eyes in the evening: Owlfish tints the display warmer and can make it darker than its lowest brightness, like Android's Night Light and Extra Dim in one.
- Warmth from no tint (6500 K) down to no blue at all (1900 K), all the time, between fixed times, or from sunset to sunrise, with a gradual change.
- Dimming on top of the current brightness, by up to 75 %, optionally only in the dark: the light sensor turns it off in bright light.
- One switch, in Settings and as a top menu shortcut.
Black stays black: the filter multiplies each colour channel instead of laying a grey overlay on top.
On the Jolla Phone (2026) the display hardware applies the filter, so animations stay as smooth as without it. Other devices draw it with the graphics processor.
After installing or upgrading, restart the phone. The home screen only loads Owlfish when it starts. Then open Settings > Owlfish.
Tested on the Jolla Phone (2026) with Sailfish OS 5.2 and the Sony Xperia 10 III with 5.1.
Source, documentation and issues: https://github.com/ccontino84/owlfish License: LGPL-2.1-only. Written with an AI coding assistant (Claude); designed, reviewed and tested on real devices by the author.
Screenshots:
Category:
Application versions:
| Attachment | Size | Date |
|---|---|---|
 owlfish-1.2.0-1.aarch64.rpm | 1.34 MB | 01/10/2026 - 21:19 |
| owlfish-1.2.0-1.armv7hl.rpm | 1.33 MB | 01/10/2026 - 21:19 |
Changelog:
Changelog: 1.2.0
- Jolla Phone: the display hardware applies the filter instead of the graphics processor, so animations stay smooth (90 fps instead of about 80). Screenshots no longer include the tint.
- "Only in the dark" is more reliable: it no longer stays dimmed in bright light after being switched on, or after the home screen restarts.
- The light threshold slider ends at the most your phone's sensor can measure (about 2200 lux on the Jolla Phone).
- For bug reports: double-tap the title of the settings page, tap Copy and paste the text into the report.
Changelog: 1.1.1
- Safer on devices that load their own Qt plugins the same way (for example the PineTab2): Owlfish stays inactive instead of switching off the device's plugins, and the installer prints a warning.
- The settings page shows the running version, and a warning when Owlfish isn't running: not supported on this device, restart needed, or turned off after the home screen failed to start (with a Reset button).
Changelog: 1.1.0
- Night light can follow the sun: "When" offers all the time, fixed times, or sunset to sunrise.
- Sunset and sunrise are calculated on the phone for your time zone's city, with no location services or network, or for coordinates you type. Under the midnight sun the colour stays neutral; in polar night it stays warm all day.
Changelog: 1.0.0
- First release: warm tint (6500 K to 1900 K) and extra dimming (up to 75 %), optionally only at night (fixed times) and only in the dark (light sensor), with one switch in Settings and the top menu.
Comments
windes
Fri, 2026/10/02 - 16:11
Permalink
Finally! After 2 years on Sailfish and 2 years of blue-days of screen every day.
When black stays black! Thank you very much! Must have app. Strange that Jolla not include this function in firmware.
P.S. no need to restart phone, just Utilities - Restart home screen ;)
Yep, on Nightish all was yellow, and black was yellowish too. Unacceptable.
flanker
Fri, 2026/10/02 - 02:32
Permalink
Pretty good! Thanks. Finally I can uninstall Nightish app which wasn't fully fledged night light app.
rdomschk
Thu, 2026/10/01 - 22:34
Permalink
Hello, many thanks its a fantastic work! Could you give the icon in a next update two feets. First time I ask me what this icon mean but afte some minutes I saw its a owl :) I am old...
ckonte
Fri, 2026/10/02 - 14:55
Permalink
Thanks for the feedback! I'm not a designer but I'll try to improve the icon :)