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Transparency modes let you control when Proximate’s cursor items are visible based on whether your mouse is moving or still. This keeps the overlay informative when you need it and out of the way when you don’t.

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Setting it up

Open the appearance editor from the Proximate menu bar icon (Edit Appearance…) and switch to the Transparency tab. While that tab is open, everything Proximate shows follows your real mouse pointer and behaves exactly as it will in everyday use, so you can change a setting and immediately feel the result.

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When moving / When still

Visibility is two independent settings, and you set both:
  • When moving — how visible items are while you are moving the mouse.
  • When still — how visible they are while the mouse is stationary.
Each is a card with its own on/off toggle and a visibility slider running from Fully transparent to Fully visible. The toggle and the slider are two views of one value: sliding to fully transparent switches the card off, switching a card off slides it to fully transparent, and moving the slider up from zero switches it back on. Switching a card on sets it to fully visible. Common setups fall out of the two cards directly:
Both cards off means nothing will ever appear beside your cursor. The editor warns you at the pointer and will not let you click Done until one of them is back on.

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Transition

How items change between the two visibility levels — 100% to 35%, say:
  • Fade — items fade between the levels.
  • None — items change between the levels instantly.
If either state is set to fully transparent, this control disappears. At that point every change is items appearing or disappearing rather than dimming, and those follow Show & Hide Animation instead.

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Show & Hide Animation

Set in Settings › General › System, this governs everything that comes and goes — items appearing or disappearing because a visibility state is fully transparent, the Hide/Show shortcut, and content changes like a notification arriving or a timer ending:
  • Motion — items are pulled into the mouse pointer as they disappear, and released from it as they return.
  • Fade — items fade in and out.
  • None — items appear and disappear instantly.
System Reduce Motion turns Motion off and falls back to Fade while it is on. Your choice is saved and returns when you turn it off.

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Advanced Settings

Three timing controls sit below the sliders. Click Advanced to collapse them if you don’t need them:
  • Fade duration (100–2000 ms, default 400 ms) — How long a fade takes, shared by both settings above. Hidden when neither can fade; Motion’s own timing is fixed. This applies to the Fade transition only; it has no effect under Pull into pointer, whose timing is fixed.
  • Idle delay (100–3000 ms, default 500 ms) — How long to wait after the mouse stops before fading to the still transparency level.
  • Movement threshold (1–20 px, default 5 px) — Minimum pixels of cursor movement required to count as “moving.” Prevents small jitters from triggering a transition.
Idle delay and movement threshold apply to every transition style. Use Reset to Defaults at the bottom to restore everything: both cards on at 100%, the Fade transition, and the default timings. It asks first — click once and the button changes to Click again to confirm, since a reset here cannot be undone.