Picture of the macOS brightness controls

Native Display Controls on macOS

MacOS supports controlling the brightness of attached displays via they keyboard. The user can even control monitors separately, simply selecting the controlled monitor via the mouse. I use that all the time.

Unfortunately, macOS and Mac monitors communicate through an arcane, apple-specific protocol instead of the standard DDC/CI protocol. This means that only some monitors that are explicitly made with macOS in mind work with the native macOS brightness controls. These “official” monitors have a dedicated picture in the system settings instead of a generic display image.

For these monitors, the following features may be supported, in addition to working as a standard display.

  • The brightness buttons on the keyboard can be used to adjust the monitor’s backlight.
  • When using the brightness controls on the monitor itself (if available), the OS will show a brightness bar just as if the keyboard controls were used.
  • If available, the on/off button on the monitor can be configured in the macOS settings to put the computer to sleep or just turn off the Monitor.
  • Rotating the monitor notifies the OS of the monitor rotation (requires a sensor currently only available in the Apple ProDisplay XDR)
  • Color space/calibration can be selected in monitor settings (Pro Display XDR only)
  • Monitor can be configured to automatically adjust brightness (requires a brightness sensor in the monitor). The LG displays have such a sensor, but brightness adjustment is not supported for an unknown reason).
  • Monitor can be configured to enable/disable TrueTone, adapting the color temperature to the environment.

Natively Supported Monitors

This is a list of monitors that can be controlled natively with macOS. Natively supported monitors were sold under the Apple and LG brands.

Apple

Cinema Display 20 (2004)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • Power Button
  • On-monitor brightness controls
  • 1680×1050, 20″, 60hz, 8-bit color

Cinema Display 23 (2004)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • Power Button
  • On-monitor brightness controls
  • 1920×1200, 23″, 60hz, 8-bit color

Cinema Display 30 (2004)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • Power Button
  • On-monitor brightness controls
  • 2560×1600, 30″, 60hz, 8-bit color

LED Cinema Display 24 (2008)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • 1920×1200, 24″, 60hz, 8-bit color

LED Cinema Display 27 (2010)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • 2560×1440, 27″, 60hz, 8-bit color

Thunderbolt Display (2011)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • 2560×1440, 27″, 60hz, 8-bit color

ProDisplay XDR (2019)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • TrueTone
  • Calibration
  • Rotation
  • 6016×3384, 31″, 60hz, 10-bit color

Studio Display (2022)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • TrueTone
  • 5120×2880, 27″, 60hz, 10-bit color

LG

UltraFine 21 (2016)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • 4096×2304, 21″, 60hz, 8-bit color

UltraFine 27 (2016)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • 5120×2880, 27″, 60hz, 10-bit color

Ultrafine 24 (2019)

  • Native Brightness controls
  • 3840×2160, 24″, 60hz, 10-bit color

Getting controls to work for DDC/CI monitors.

No reason to despair! It is possible to add support for DDI/CI monitors via the OpenSource application MonitorControl starting up with the system, if feels just like the native support and it even works with a combination of “official” and “unofficial” monitors.


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