Festivitas for Mac

The Light Appearance pane answers most questions before you even launch the thing. Festivitas is Simon Støvring’s small macOS utility that strings holiday lights across the Dock and menu bar the moment it opens. The lights appear automatically, no configuration required, though you can adjust their look immediately afterward.

Decoration scope: Dock, menu bar, and iOS Home Screen

• Where do the lights appear? On the Mac, they decorate the Dock and the menu bar. The developer also offers separate versions for iPhone and iPad that light up the Home Screen.
• Can I change how they look? Yes. The light appearance is customisable, so you are not locked into a single preset.
• Will it run on my machine? Festivitas supports Apple Silicon and Intel 64-bit Macs running macOS 14.6 or later.

First impression after launch

There is no setup wizard, no preference window that ambushes you. The lights simply appear, subtle enough to feel cheerful rather than distracting. That restraint makes the app easy to keep around well past December.

Version 1.9.4 fix was, as the name suggests, a repair rather than a feature update. In practice, this matters less for what it adds and more for what it no longer does: the lights stay put after wake from sleep and no longer flicker when other menu bar items redraw themselves. If you tried an earlier build and found the decorations slightly temperamental around display changes, this release settles that. The everyday rhythm is otherwise unchanged — launch the app, the lights appear, and they remain until you quit.

Light density and string length: two adjustments that shape the mood

The default appearance is well judged, but two adjustments make the decoration feel more personal. The first is the light density: shorter spans suit a minimal menu bar, while a fuller string reads better against a dark wallpaper. The second is the colour set. A single warm tone keeps things quiet, whereas multicolour lights lean closer to a traditional holiday look. Both changes take effect immediately, so comparing options is quick.

It is also worth deciding early whether you want the app to launch at login. Since Festivitas decorates automatically when it starts, enabling that behaviour means your Mac greets you already lit — no extra step after a restart.

Quit to clear: instant removal and drag-and-drop setup

• Quit to undecorate. There is no need to hunt for a toggle. Quitting the app removes the lights from the Dock and menu bar at once.
• Drag-and-drop install. Open the downloaded disk image, drag the app into the Applications folder, then launch it from Launchpad. The whole process takes under a minute.
• Reopen without thinking. Because the lights appear on launch, relaunching the app after an update or a reboot restores the decoration exactly as you left it — provided your chosen appearance settings are saved, which they are.

One detail that is easy to miss: the same developer makes companion versions for iPhone and iPad, so the Home Screen can match the Mac. A user who keeps a consistent look across devices will find that a small but pleasing touch — one that makes a second download Festivitas for Mac feel less like repetition and more like completing a set.

• macOS 14.6 or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel 64-bit processor