Installation overview

Lights Off is a Python application distributed on PyPI. The recommended install method is pipx, which isolates it in its own virtual environment and puts the lights-off command on your PATH.

Requirements

Requirement Version
Python 3.12, 3.13, or 3.14
Operating system Windows 10/11 or macOS 12+
Screen reader NVDA, JAWS, or SAPI (Windows); VoiceOver (macOS); optional

Linux is not fully supported — the GUI and audio layers depend on libraries that do not have stable Linux packages. See Linux for the current status.

Install methods

Method Best for
pipx install lights-off End users — isolated, no dependency conflicts
pip install lights-off Developers or existing virtual environments
uv tool install lights-off Users who already use uv
Clone + uv sync Contributors

See the platform-specific pages for exact steps:

First-run note

On the first launch you will be asked for your Mastodon instance URL (e.g. https://mastodon.social) and will complete a one-time OAuth browser flow to authorise the application. Credentials are stored locally in your user config directory; no password is ever stored in plain text.