SOLVED Any way to make the screen totally dark?

[So Here I Am]

Hello! So glad this site is still here. Thanks to all of you who make it work!

I'm trying to set up the ideal working environment for my desk. I have nonstop rain sounds via YouTube. What I can't seem to do is make the screen completely dark. I can reduce the light to a certain point with the F1 and F2 keys. But not completely.

In essence, I want the screen to go to sleep but not the computer. In a perfect world it would wake right back up with a keystroke or a touch on the Magic pad. But I'm happy with something more complex if necessary.

It's a less common question than I thought. A web search left me empty for posts after 2016!

There's no practical way to turn the monitor away from my face. We're looking right at each other - limited real estate on the desk.

I'm on a new(ish - new last March) iMac, fully up to date with Tahoe 26.3.1.

Advice, please? Many thanks!

 

[MacsBug]

This is quite easy. I never put my Mac to sleep I just turn off the displays.

To set this up go to the System Settings and depending on your system locate the settings for Hot Corners.

In newer versions of macOS go to Desktop and Dock then scroll to the bottom and click on Hot Corners.
In older versions of macOS go to Desktop and Screen Saver. Select Screen Saver, and on the bottom right you will see the button for Hot Corners.

Here I use the bottom left.. Hold down the Control key and click on the pulldown, then select Put Display to sleep and close the system settings.

Now all you need to do is to hold down the control key and move your mouse to the bottom left corner of your screen. Your display will go to sleep leaving your Mac to run whatever is running on it.

 

[TonyAguila]

It has been a while since I worked on an iMac (…used to be an AppleCare Service Provider) so if your model does not have a switch (hardware or software), I don’t know of any way to turn the monitor off. On my system (Mac Studio w/ two 32" LG monitors), one of them has a switch on the bottom edge that will allow you to turn it on or off directly. However the newer one has a similar switch except for the Power on or off ability. However, don’t despair yet.

Go to System Settings, in the search field (upper left), start typing “hot corners” (sans the quotes, of course) and below will appear “Hot Corner Shortcuts.” Click on that and the menu for hot corners settings will appear. (I don’t know of any other way to make it appear.) The pulldown triggers for each of the corners of the screen will be available. Click on any of the four to see a list of the available choices. In your case, you probably want “Put Display to Sleep” for one of the four corners. If you want to avoid accidentally setting it off, first press any of the modifier keys (command, control, option, or shift) before clicking on the selected corner button and a modifier will be attached to the action. Try it. Test it. See if that was what you wanted. Imagine having 20 actions available to you by simply moving the cursor to any of the screen corners. Yes, twenty! Command, option, control, shift, and no modifier. Enjoy!

By the way, the latest non-beta version of macOS is 26.4 (25E5207k). The latest beta version is 26.4 Beta 3 (25E5223i). If you want to know how to download the installer file without immediately updating, should you want to keep a copy for future, just ask. Good luck.

*Edit*: You can also bring up the hot corners selector by clicking on the “Hot Corners…” button on the bottom of the Desktop & Dock panel.

 

[So Here I Am]

Oh, so simple!!! And I never would have stumbled over it, would never have looked there. Bingo, it works! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer.

 

[So Here I Am]

Tony, thank you so much as well! It's great to be able to do this.