What is the keyboard shortcut to sleep display on the Macbook Air?

jp^_^ wrote:

Yeah indeed, I would like to know also. No help on this? 😢

What about a "Hot Corner". System Preferences\Display and Screen Saver\Screen Saver\ Lower Left hand corner select Hot Corners. Pick your Corner and selcet "Put Display To Sleep". works well for me.

Sorry for being a Johnny-Come-Lately to this thread, but I just found it.

I do not like using a Hot Corner (alone) because it is too easy to inadvertently sleep the screen by random movement of the the cursor. However, there is a solution....

You can add a "modifier key" (e.g., the "Command" key) to the hot corner sequence so that moving the cursor to the chosen hot corner does NOT sleep the screen unless you also push and hold the modifier key.

To add a modifier key, open "System Preferences", go to "Desktop & Screen Saver", choose the "Screen Saver" tab, and click on "Hot Corners…". Open the dropdown for the corner you prefer. Before clicking "Put Display to Sleep" hold down the Command key (or another modifier key*) and then click "Put Display to Sleep".

Voilà! Now the display will sleep only if you hold down the Command key before moving the cursor to the chosen Hot Corner.

*I believe the only modifier keys available for this are Shift, Control, Option and Command -- you can use any one of them or combinations.

Looks like this topic has already been covered before:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3254687?answerId=15934173022#15934173022

My MBA has an eject button, but the newer one does not. I was going to post a link to all the keyboard shortcuts on a Mac, but that wouldn't apply to a newer Mac without the eject button. I usually just close the lid, but you'd like to only put the display to sleep. I just tried that Control>Shift>Eject button shortcut myself and it worked well. I read all of the posts before responding too...

Sly

http://www.maketecheasier.com/put-macs-display-to-sleep/

• Shift + Control + Power – for Macs with built-in keyboards having the Power button
• Shift + Control + Eject – for Macs with keyboards having an Eject key

The OP wants to sleep the DISPLAY, not the computer.

I don't think there is a shortcut anymore for sleeping the display without an eject key.

Perhaps you can assign "eject" to a specific key that you don't use, like play/pause.

Yes you are right, many people here don't seem to read what is asked, so once again.

We want to SLEEP the DISPLAY NOT the MBA.

On laptops with an Eject key this was done with Control + Shift + Eject but the MBA has no DVD drive so no Eject key.

Has Apple abandoned this key shortcut combination for the MBA?

What I do is to hit the power button in the upper right on my Macbook Air. Then I'll hit the "s" key to sleep, "Return" key to shutdown, "Esc" key to cancel, or the "r" key to reboot. If you want to require your password when waking up, be sure to change it in your system preferences --> Security --> require password immedaiately after sleep or screen saver.

No. It isn't. And it's a dismissive and ultimately disrespectful jab ad the original poster (the only one that can assess if the reply is adequate).

The OP was asking for a shortcut to put the display to sleep since the "Normal" one doesn't apply to a MBA air. How can telling him to put the whole computer to sleep be a sensible answer? Especially when half the people ignored the question and answered this and were properly scolded for not paying attention and being less than helpful.

Still, at least they're attempting to help, even if they don't really answer the question. You're justifying their incorrect answer and behaviour, though.

This thread really is about how much people take care...

There are workarounds (like the already reported hot corner plus modifier key). Here is a nice overview:

http://www.midwesternmac.com/blogs/jeff-geerling/force-sleep-display-2010-2011

Another way: Download BetterTouchTool (free) and configure it to whatever you want.

E.g. Go Simple->Gestures->Keyboard tab

under the prefefined actions tab there is a "sleep display" item. I configured it to the key Control-Shift-Backspace. That feels almost like Control-Shift-Eject.

All of you guys replying with instructions of how to sleep the machine rather than the display should be ashamed, read posts in future- you're not helping, this thread was incredibly irritating to read through and find my answer.

BetterTouchTool is the way to go for this it seems, but for my use case at least, 'sleep display' isn't appropriate, it renders your machine unusable on connected AirPlay devices, which is what I was looking for.

If you want to 'sleep display' your machine so that it isn't glowing whilst you're using AirPlay, this isn't going to cut it, the device becomes unresponsive- much like regular sleep it seems, I'm not entire sure what the difference is.

Since I wanted to just stop my MacBook Air glowing whilst I'm AirPlaying, I used BetterTouchTool to bind 16x brightness down and 16x keyboard lights down actions to a single key (I chose the key beneath ESC) and similarly, shift + that key to do the opposite. Effectively making my screen dim to black, and keyboard lights turn off whilst still leaving AirPlay working fine so I can watch streams on my AppleTV 🙂

Just to confirm it looks like this: http://cl.ly/image/0d0g0Q0A3C3L

Works great! 🙂

This thread was just hilarious to read. I love how 99% of you failed to read the OP's actual question. COMPUTER STANDBY SLEEP is DIFFERENT than DISPLAY SLEEP. There are MANY ways to do this, he wants the most simple way. Anyway, thanks to the last poster made it simple and easy.

control+shift+power button is DISPLAY SLEEP

Pressing the power button and hitting S is COMPUTER STANDBY SLEEP

This tread is indeed hilarious lol

For my purpose ie. turn off the screen just to save some battery when I have to leave my MBA 11 (no Eject key) but will come back, hold the Power key (very short time, like 1/4 second) works great. Control + Shift + Power works too, your choice.

Open `System Preferences` -> `Keyboard` -> `Shortcuts` -> `App Shortcuts`. Then click on the plus ➕ sign under the white box that has the different options in there. Name it 'Sleep' and give it the ⌘⌥F12 command (cmd + opt + F12). You can set it to whatever you like but most keyboards already map F12 to the eject key so if you get a different keyboard it may work already by default. Remember to also change your settings to require your password after a set time after going to sleep. Hope this helps, I searched for awhile to find out how to do this and couldn't find any good answers.

jp^_^ wrote:

I wish there would be shortcut for this, as in my older macbook air has... anyhow this is better than nothing.

Thnx

Your welcome !