Turn Off the MacBook or MacBook Pro Screen with the Computer Still On
You can turn off the internal MacBook Pro screen and still use the computer as long as it’s hooked up to an external display, and no you don’t have to use it in clamshell mode to achieve this.
Here are two ways to keep your Mac laptop with the lid open but the internal display turned off:
Method 1) Turn Down the Brightness
You’ll first want to gather all the windows from the internal display and drag them to the external monitor. You’ll also want to set the primary display to the external screen too. Then:
- Launch the System Preferences
- Click on “Display”
- Slide the brightness scale all the way to the left to turn the internal display off, be sure to disable the ambient light adjustment too
The screen will now be black and stay off, however it can still capture windows, this is why it’s important to set the primary display.
The other advantage to using the lowered screen brightness trick is that the Mac stays active and usable while the screen is off, meaning it’s still accessible on a network or could continue a task (like downloading a large file or app) without having the display on. This works even without an external display connected too.
Method 2) Close and Wake the MacBook
This just tricks Mac OS X into only driving the external display:
- Attach the external display you plan on using as the primary display
- Close the MacBook Pro lid and wait for it to sleep
- Wake the MacBook Pro with either an external mouse, keyboard, flash drive, or other USB device
- The MacBook Pro will now wake but only the external display will be powered
- Now you can open the MacBook Pro lid and the display will stay turned off
Using either method 1 or method 2 you’ll still be able to use the internal keyboard and trackpad of the MacBook Pro. Now, I’m a huge fan of lots of workspace so I’d recommend keeping the internal screen enabled just to utilize the additional screen real estate, but there are reasons you’d want to keep the internal screen off and just power an external monitor.
These tips should work with the MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro.
Here’s a solution
https://github.com/epalzeolithe/DisableMonitor-3.0
I use clamshell mode. I use macbook pro early 13″. In clamshell mode, when the lid is open, the external moniter turns to black in 1-2 seconds and turns on. The lid is closed, external works well. I think This is because of lack of graphic performance. How do I use clamshell mode opening lid turn screen off?
can i set up expose on the laptop monitor and leave the external ruunning? how can i do this
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Just turn down brightness and leave display mode on mirroring.
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I got lion on my 2007 macbook pro and method 2 no longer works, and i can’t play graphic intensive games until its resolved or else i risk frying the video card. Anyone??
Yea it doesn’t work anymore with my new Macbook Air running Lion. Any suggestions?
Method 2 no longer works on Lion. D:
HELPPPPP~~!
If you use an external monitor don’t dim the internal monitor because it will always get resources from the gpu. It is better to keep the internal display off.
(1) what is the meaning to not use 2 monitors when you can do it? (2 is better than 1)
(2) what is the meaning to reopen the lid if the monitor is switched off? Just let it closed, no?
(1) Full graphical power to one monitor. Makes a huge difference on less powerful cards.
(2) Airflow through the keyboard, and in some cases: wifi signal strength.
Point 1) is absolutely essential on older MacBook and iBook hardware, if you hook up an external montor otherwise you will experience GPU slowdown as it struggles to drive a large screen. Average user probably won’t notice but if you are doing anything GPU intensive it crawls.
Thanx to you too TJ!
Thank you Paster for the answers :)
Seems the easiest thing to me is just use the Brightness buttons on the top row of the keypad. 1 hit screen off, and 1 hit screen on if you have to check for any open windows. :)
I never knew about Control+Shift+Eject.
Thanks!
How do these compare to just hitting Control+Shift+Eject?
I use ‘Expose’. Just assign “Put display to sleep” to one of the corners of the screen, mouse over and job done.
Or just pres Command-option + eject button ;-).
“Method 2” works the best if you still want to use the MacBook trackpad and keyboard, turning down the brightness still causes windows to get lost on that screen
You can do it without any external accessories. Just close the MacBook’s lid when you send it to sleep, next time when you want to wake it up, open the lid a bit and close down immediately, wait some seconds while the OS X loads and open it ;)
My setup is a MacBook+BT Keyb & mouse+External Display. a friend of mine with a similar one was surprised to learn that you don’t even have to wait for Osx to boot to close the lid and wake up the computer thereafter: I open the lid, push the power button & close it. The MacBook now boots using the external display as the primary one.
the same story on my macbook pro – nice :-)
works great, but the macbook pro must be connected to a power source