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In macOS 10.14 Mojave Apple turned the «LCD font smoothing» setting (which turned a subpixel antialiasing on) to «just font smoothing» setting. So now all the text is rendered just antialiased that looks worse on not-retina displays. How to enable the subpixel antialiasing back?

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    Note: The font smoothing option is still available under the General panel in System Preferences. I think you mean to note that the implementation of font smoothing has changed.
    – ephsmith
    Sep 28, 2018 at 9:34
  • @ephsmith You are right. But there is no LCD font smoothing option anymore.
    – Finesse
    Sep 28, 2018 at 10:29
  • Font smoothing is available on 10.14. It is located on the bottom of the System Preferences -> General panel.
    – ephsmith
    Sep 29, 2018 at 11:06
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    @ephsmith «Font smoothing» and «LCD font smoothing» are different features
    – Finesse
    Sep 29, 2018 at 11:42
  • Good point! I agree. That's a good clarification to make explicitly so that viewers aren't misled to think no smoothing is available. This is why I mentioned the implementation has changed.
    – ephsmith
    Sep 29, 2018 at 11:48

2 Answers 2

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  1. Open the Terminal application

  2. Type or paste

    defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO
  3. Press ↩︎ (Enter)
  4. Restart the computer

To return it back, do the same but instead type in the terminal

defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool YES

Update on 2019.10.12: the solution works in macOS 10.15 too.

Update on 2019.12.24: you can turn subpixel antialiasing only in a specific application. To achieve it, do the same but instead type in the terminal

defaults write com.evernote.Evernote CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO

where com.evernote.Evernote is the identifier of the application. See how to get it in this question. Then restart the application.

To revert it, type in the terminal

defaults delete com.evernote.Evernote CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled

You can even enable subpixel antialiasing everywhere and disable in a specific application (it's left as an exercise for the reader).

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    No need to restart? Just Logout/login? – I read that feature was gone for good. Not using Mojave: can you post pictures of the difference for proof?
    – LаngLаngС
    Sep 29, 2018 at 13:28
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    Any app you launch after that will be properly anti aliased. Restart is needed if you want to refresh the whole user interface.
    – Antwan
    Aug 2, 2019 at 13:19
  • Testing this on my Apple TB Display on Mojave: FontSmoothingDisabled FALSE looks more pixelated and less smooth than with TRUE, which is counter to what you'd expect.
    – benwiggy
    Dec 21, 2019 at 14:18
  • @benwiggy I expect a subpixel antialiasing. It may look good or bad depending on the monitor.
    – Finesse
    Dec 22, 2019 at 7:50
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    I remain unconvinced that sub-pixel rendering exists on MacOS in Mojave and later.
    – benwiggy
    Sep 6, 2022 at 7:08
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To add to the accepted answer, you may need to turn off the new "just font smoothing" implementation after enabling subpixel antialiasing. This solves the pixelated text issue user benwiggy commented about on a 13.3" mid-2012 MacBook Pro (1280 x 800 non-retina screen) and especially for very small font sizes. By leaving the font smoothing option enabled simultaneously with subpixel antialiasing, the text weight appears inconsistent and "pixelated".

I doubt screenshots will do the visible difference justice, but here are some comparisons anyway. (All screenshots were taken after defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO and logging out to enable subpixel antialiasing systemwide.)

Comparison in System Preferences - General Pane Comparison in Safari - Tabs

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    Your screen shots show no evidence of subpixel rendering/anti-aliasing. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering for example screen shots.
    – Feuermurmel
    Jan 26, 2020 at 13:51
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    You’re right. Unfortunately, subpixel rendering doesn’t work properly in Catalina. In 10.15, the command just makes fonts appear thinner. Of course, it is suggested to use the new font smoothing implementation if smooth text similar to previous versions is what you’re after. Some others wrote about it at discussions.apple.com/thread/250998388 and at reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/dmntf5/comment/f9mdqia
    – alyx
    Jan 27, 2020 at 20:50
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    @AlexLiu Using Tinkertool bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html, I enabled FontSmoothing on Catalina and set Strong smoothing which I prefer. Thought I've not quite understood what is the technical difference between the three levels.
    – IceMan
    Apr 2, 2020 at 2:34
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    That "Use font smoothing when available" is not there for me on macOS 11.1.
    – nroose
    Jan 21, 2021 at 19:03

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