My brand new MacBook Air with M1 chip does not have a way to backlight the keyboard. Help.

The keyboard does have a backlight.

Turn your Mac keyboard’s backlighting on or off - Apple Support

You can also adjust the brightness using the Control Center.

Use Control Centre on Mac - Apple Support

When you shutdown and boot up, the keyboard light will work. If you leave the lid open and let the computer sleep, the keyboard light will work.

If you close the lid and open it... the keyboard light will not work until you either reboot or let it sleep with the lid open.

Thanks to Apple removing the keyboard light keys from the keyboard of the new Air, there is no way to enable or disable the keyboard light manually from what I can find - and yes, that includes the control centre, the settings or anything else.

fozzedout wrote:

When you shutdown and boot up, the keyboard light will work. If you leave the lid open and let the computer sleep, the keyboard light will work.

If you close the lid and open it... the keyboard light will not work until you either reboot or let it sleep with the lid open.

Thanks to Apple removing the keyboard light keys from the keyboard of the new Air, there is no way to enable or disable the keyboard light manually from what I can find - and yes, that includes the control centre, the settings or anything else.

I can’t replicate this with MacOS v11.1, it works perfectly for me. I suggest check your MacOS version and update if necessary.

Anyone knows why the keyboard brightness icon is always missing in my 2020 MBA control centre?