The illuminated keyboard on a MacBook is an incredibly useful feature when working in a dimly lit room or on a late-night flight. However, when you are using your Mac in a brightly lit office or outside in direct sunlight, the keyboard backlight is entirely unnecessary and only serves to drain your battery faster.
Furthermore, some users simply find the glowing keys distracting when watching a movie in the dark. Whatever your reason, macOS allows you to completely turn off the keyboard backlight with just a few clicks.
How to Turn Off the Backlight Using the Control Center
On modern Macs running macOS Big Sur or newer, the fastest way to adjust the keyboard brightness is by using the Control Center located in your menu bar.
- Look in the top-right corner of your Mac’s screen and click the Control Center icon (it looks like two small toggle switches).
- In the drop-down menu, locate the Keyboard Brightness module.
- Click and drag the slider all the way to the left (until it reaches zero).
The backlight will instantly turn off, leaving your keys completely dark.
How to Turn Off the Backlight Using System Settings
If you want to ensure the backlight stays off and doesn’t automatically turn itself back on when the room gets dark, you should adjust the settings in the main System Settings menu.
- Click the Apple Logo in the top-left corner of your screen.
- Select System Settings (or System Preferences on older Macs).
- Scroll down the left-hand sidebar and click on Keyboard.
- In the main panel, look for the setting labelled Keyboard brightness.
- Drag the slider completely to the left to turn the light off.
- Directly below the slider, turn Off the toggle switch labelled “Adjust keyboard brightness in low light”.
By disabling the automatic adjustment feature, you guarantee that the ambient light sensor on your Mac will not attempt to turn the keyboard backlight back on when the sun goes down.
How to Turn Off the Backlight Using the Keyboard
If you are using an older MacBook (produced before the Touch Bar or the newer M1/M2 redesigns), you likely have dedicated physical brightness keys directly on your keyboard.
Simply look at the top row of your keyboard for the F5 key. This key will have an icon of a small sun with a line through it, or a very small sun symbol representing lower brightness.
Press and hold the F5 key until the on-screen brightness indicator drops all the way to zero and the keyboard goes dark.