How to Brighten Screen on Mac – A Detailed Guide

Your Mac is smart enough to manage its screen brightness automatically. It will dim or brighten your display based on the lighting in your room. However, you can even manually control the brightness of your screen or use shortcut keys on your Mac keyboard. So, in this detailed guide, we will learn how to brighten screen on Mac or lower when needed.

How to brighten screen on Mac with your keyboard shortcuts

You’ll find function keys on your keyboard that you can use to adjust the brightness on your Mac easily. They are the F1 and F2 function keys. With the F1 key, you can decrease the brightness and the F2 key to increase the brightness on your Mac.

The important thing is you’ll find both the keys on your MacBook and your Mac desktop with your Apple keyboard. The keys are also located in the same location. You’ll find the F1 and F2 keys on the upper-left corner of your MacBook or the Apple Keyboard on your Mac desktop.

Here’s how to turn up the brightness or down on your Mac and MacBook:

how to turn up and down the brightness on Mac

Click on the F2 key once to increase the screen’s brightness on your Mac by one point. Continue pressing the F2 key to keeping on increasing the brightness. Or you could press and hold on to the F2 key to rapidly increase your screen’s brightness.
To decrease the brightness of your screen by one point, click on the F1 key once. Also, keep on pressing the F1 key to dim your Mac’s screen. Or you could click and hold the F1 key to decrease the screen brightness really fast.

However, if you are using a non-Apple keyboard with your MacBook or Mac desktop, then the function keys won’t be in the sample place. And in some instances, you won’t even find the keys on the keyboard. In that case, you need to use your Mac device’s display settings to adjust its screen brightness manually.

How to brighten screen on Mac manually

Another way to adjust your Mac’s brightness is through its Display settings. This method would be beneficial if you use a Mac desktop with a third-party keyboard without the function keys. As a result, you won’t be able to adjust the brightness of your Mac using the shortcut keys on your keyboard. In such cases, you can use your Mac’s built-in Display settings.

Here’s how to adjust screen brightness on a Mac desktop:

steps on how to change screen brightness on Mac

Click on the “Apple” menu in the upper-left corner of your screen.
Next, select the “System Preferences” from the options.
On the System Preferences window, press the “Displays” icon.
On the Displays window, drag the “Brightness” slider to control the brightness on your Mac.

How to brighten screen on Mac automatically

This method can adjust your Mac’s display brightness based on the nearby ambient light. This is possible because of the built-in ambient light sensor that can detect the level of light near your device. With its help, your Mac will adjust its brightness based on the nearby illumination. If your Mac’s surroundings are bright, its display will also be more brilliant. And if the nearby surrounding is dark, your Mac’s screen will be dimmer.

Here’s how to brighten the Mac screen automatically:

Steps to adjust screen brightness on Mac automatically

First, click on the “Apple” menu in the top-left corner.
Next, select the “System Preferences” from the options.
On the System Preferences window, press the “Displays” icon.
On the Displays window, check the “Automatically adjust brightness.”

How to brighten screen on MacBook when you’re plugged in

If you are on the Battery Power mode, your screen will be dimmer on your MacBook. And your screen will brighten if you have plugged in with a power source. This, however, will only work if you’ve enabled the Energy Saver feature. Here’s how to:

To begin, go to the upper-left corner of your screen and click the “Apple” menu.
Next, hit the “System Preferences” options from this menu.
Then select the “Energy Saver” icon from the System Preferences window.
After that, under the “Battery” tab, click on the checkbox for the “Slightly dim the display while on battery power” option.

What is the shortcut to adjust brightness on Mac?

The easiest and fastest shortcut to adjusting the brightness of your Mac’s screen is by using your keyboard’s F1 and F2 function keys. Whether it is your MacBook or your Mac desktop with an Apple keyboard, the function keys work on both. To increase the brightness of your Mac screen, press the F2 key, and to dim the screen, hit the F1 key. Both keys are located in the upper-left of your keyboard.

Concluding remarks

You should know that enabling the automatic brightness function will not bar you from manually changing the brightness of your Mac. You can manually adjust the brightness from your device’s display settings or press the F1 or F2 keys on your keyboard. Overall, we’ve covered all the methods on how to brighten screen on Mac.

If you’ve liked this detailed post, then you’ll also enjoy another of our comprehensive blogs on how to speed up a slow Mac. Also, if you want to manage your Mac’s storage, then you can check out: How to Optimize Storage on Mac.