What pushes the temperature higher
Output per foot. A high brightness product draws more current per foot than a low output one, and more current means more heat in the same space. The biggest lever you have.
An enclosed reveal. A slot with no gap above the tape, a sealed cove, a shallow drawer or a closed cabinet all trap warm air against the run.
No channel and no thermal path. Tape stuck onto wood, plaster or plastic gives heat nowhere to go, and the strip becomes its own heatsink.
Running near the rated maximum. Products publish a maximum run per feed and an operating specification, and sitting at the top of that range leaves nothing in hand (verify both for your exact tape).
Ambient conditions. A ceiling void in summer, a run above a heat source, or a driver in the same cavity as the tape all raise the starting point.
When the warmth is telling you something real
Warmth spread evenly along the run, stable after an hour and comfortable to touch, matches what a lit strip normally does.
These patterns are worth acting on. One short section noticeably hotter than the rest means a local problem: a poor joint, a damaged section, or a fold where the tape doubles over itself. A run that keeps climbing past the first hour has nowhere to shed what it makes. Discoloration, adhesive releasing, or the strip lifting off its mount all say conditions are harder than the installation can handle.
The driver deserves its own look, since supplies make heat too and one working hard in a closed enclosure has it worse than the tape it feeds. Check its load against the rating, headroom included (verify both figures on the supply's page). Cut the power before you handle anything, and leave hardwired supplies, junction boxes and wall devices to a licensed electrician working to local code, NEC and the printed instructions.
What actually brings a run down
An aluminum profile is the usual first move. It helps dissipate heat across its length, gives the strip a solid mount, and tidies the edge of the installation. The channels and profiles collection covers the shapes available, and the EnoLED low profile surface mount channel is one option where depth is limited (verify its internal width and accepted tape widths before ordering). A channel is not mandatory, and the second job people expect from it deserves a plain answer: with a diffuser it reduces but does not guarantee the removal of visible dots, since dot appearance also depends on LED density, channel depth and the lens.
Choosing a lower output product is the other lever, and it is no downgrade where the design does not need the extra light. A cabinet lit by high brightness tape at a low setting makes more heat than lower output tape at a comfortable level.
Then there is air. Leave a gap above the strip in a cove, avoid sealing a run into a cavity with no path out, and site the driver where it can breathe. Split runs go back to the supply as their own parallel pairs, 24V tape on 24V and 12V tape on 12V.
