Filed under: Mac 101
Mac 101: Put your display to sleep fast
Quick! The boss is coming! Hide your screen! What, you don't have Spaces set up so you can switch to that handy Excel worksheet you've got open? That's okay -- just put your display to sleep.
Of course, there are other reasons to want to quickly turn off your display, but they all have one simple key combination: Control + Shift + Eject.
It works with both desktop and laptop Macs. Moving the mouse or pressing a key on the keyboard wakes it right back up when you're ready.
Of course, if you want to put your whole computer to sleep, you can use Option + Command + Eject. There are other helpful shortcuts, too, in this article deep in the TUAW archives.
Thanks to our own Michael Rose for this one. Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's Mac 101 section.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Dysan819 said 10:46AM on 1-16-2009
Thanks for this! Now, how do I tell my MacBook to hibernate instead of sleep? I don't want it to wake up until I press the power button again.
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Robert Palmer said 10:51AM on 1-16-2009
You might consider Deep Sleep (http://deepsleep.free.fr/), a dashboard widget that puts your computer into Safe Sleep (hibernation mode) when clicked.
jj6 said 10:51AM on 1-16-2009
Or you could set an active corner to turn of your display; might be faster than the keyboard shortcut.
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Hickeroar said 10:55AM on 1-16-2009
This is what I do. I just have the bottom left corner set to turn off the display....which is not a full sleep. It seems like overkill to put the computer into sleep mode.
Of course the best thing to do would be to use spaces, and keep one space clear, or even just "safe," and switch to that space instead of shutting off the whole machine...
rTwelve said 1:28PM on 1-16-2009
It's even faster with a trackpad. Just swipe and forget about it.
AdiFish said 10:53AM on 1-16-2009
Wonderful! Only today I was wondering how to my display to sleep quickly. I had set up a hot corner to do the job but this is so much better! Thank you! :)
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Kai said 10:54AM on 1-16-2009
If only Ctrl+Shift+Eject also locked the screen or trigger the screen saver. Why is there no key combo to lock your screen or trigger the screen saver with password protection?
Enabling Fast User Switching and switching to the login screen to lock my computer is not nearly as fast as hitting three buttons on the keyboard.
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Jan said 11:13AM on 1-16-2009
I would also like this feature, sleeping the display and locking the desktop with one shortcut key would be ideal.
justus said 12:18PM on 1-16-2009
You can lock your screen pretty fast if you activate the Keychain Access icon in the menubar and then click on it. I don't think there is a shortcut.
Erick said 1:47PM on 1-16-2009
Hey try this
http://ourapples.com/node/8
You can set it up to be in the menu bar, or the dock, or both.
Personally I like the dock because all i have to do is click it when I get up and it's locked.
Devon said 11:18AM on 1-16-2009
So instead of the boss catching you looking at slashdot, they can catch you staring at a black screen?
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Joseph said 12:17PM on 1-16-2009
was about to say the same thing. You working?
Drew said 1:13PM on 1-16-2009
I wish there was a way to turn the screen off completely on the iMac. We have the iMac in our bedroom, and if I am syncing my iPhone or worse, burning a DVD, the screen stays on the whole time. It's kind of difficult to sleep when the room is lit up like it's daytime.
Any suggestions?
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JaysonL said 12:18PM on 1-16-2009
Drew- This is my biggest complaint about the iMac. I hate that there's no off button for the screen. I, too, have my iMac in my bedroom and there are lots of processes that refuse to keep the screen black/off. I've tried the free "Brightness Control" app (it turns the brightness far down) but it's still is very noticeable in a dark room.
For the love of God, would someone please write a simple app that shuts off the screen, turning it back on ONLY when the user hits a keyboard button!!! I would gladly pay for it. If Apple is serious about conserving energy then they need to give users the option to keep their monitors off.
+. said 12:22PM on 1-16-2009
Drew: try "NightyNight". i use this all the time on my iMac.
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/NightyNight.shtml
it's just an AppleScript that toggles your display sleep time to 1 minute. after a minute of inactivity, your display turns off. doesn't turn back on until you move the mouse or whatever. you activate NightyNight again to set the display sleep time back to whatever it was originally.
i prefer this to the keyboard shortcut (or hot corner) solution, because i find that if i use the shortcut before bed, i'll often wake to find my display randomly turned itself back on... with NightyNight, even if this happens, it will only stay on for a minute before it goes back to sleep.
eyefone4949 said 1:15PM on 1-16-2009
Drew-
On my iMac, I briefly press the power button on the back. This puts the computer to sleep. To wake it up, I press the spacebar.
I have a password protected screen saver and that is what appears when it awakens.
dubya said 2:37PM on 1-17-2009
Um, you can sleep while your iMac's burning a DVD?
jason said 11:20AM on 1-16-2009
great question drew
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George said 11:42AM on 1-16-2009
I set up a hot corner to sleep my iMac's display, but for some reason it doesn't stick--the display doesn't remain asleep. The display consistantly turns on again within one or two minutes. It's annoying and I don't know why it's happening. I don't believe the mouse is causing the problem--if I sleep the display and walk away from the desk, the screen still turns on again with a minute or two. (This doesn't actually rule out the mouse causing me problems. Maybe the mouse is sending a noisy, "jittery" signal.)
I'll try this key combo; I'm curious if the display will behave differently. Anyone else having similar problems with hot-corner-sleeping their display?
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Joe Stanley said 11:25AM on 1-16-2009
The quickest way I've found to sleep the display on my Macbook is to set up expose to sleep the display when the mouse hits the bottom left corner. It takes some getting used to, but kills the screen quickly in a pinch.
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