MonitorControl

MonitorControl is a free, open-source macOS utility that extends Apple's native brightness and volume controls to external monitors, letting you adjust any connected display from the keyboard, menu bar, or Touch Bar without touching a physical button.

What is MonitorControl?

MonitorControl is an open-source Mac app that sends DDC/CI commands to external displays, giving you genuine hardware-level brightness and contrast control through macOS's own system UI. Install it once, and your external monitor behaves the way Apple should have made it behave out of the box — your keyboard's brightness keys dim the screen, the Control Center slider actually moves the backlight, and the brightness reading survives reboots.

It supports a wide range of monitors via DDC/CI, plus Apple's own XDR displays through a separate software brightness overlay. If your display doesn't speak DDC, MonitorControl falls back to a software dimming layer so you still get some control, clearly flagged as a software rather than hardware adjustment.

What does MonitorControl do best?

The killer feature is seamless keyboard integration: once you've set a monitor as the "main" display or linked it to your MacBook panel, F1/F2 just work — no detour through a manufacturer's clunky OSD. I use a single ultrawide paired with a MacBook Pro, and after installing MonitorControl I genuinely forgot it was running. Brightness adjusts in one fluid motion the same way the built-in display does.

• DDC/CI hardware control — true backlight adjustment, not a grey overlay
• Unified slider — optionally sync brightness across all connected monitors simultaneously
• Keyboard mapping — F1/F2 can target the external display, the built-in, or both
• Volume via DDC — adjust a monitor's built-in speakers without touching the keyboard volume keys
• Menu-bar sliders — persistent, compact, always one click away
• Night-mode compatibility — plays nicely with Night Shift and f.lux; neither fights the other

The app also remembers per-input brightness levels — so if you switch a monitor between a Mac mini and a gaming PC with a KVM, it restores your preferred brightness when that input comes back. It's a small thing that saves a surprising amount of friction.

Is MonitorControl free?

Yes — MonitorControl is completely free and open-source under the MIT licence, maintained by a volunteer community on GitHub. There is no Pro tier, no subscription, and no feature gating. You can donate to contributors via their GitHub Sponsors page, which I'd encourage given how much daily-driver value this app provides. Installation is via a direct download from monitorcontrol.app or through Homebrew Cask (brew install --cask monitorcontrol).

Who should use MonitorControl?

Anyone who regularly works on an external monitor and has ever reached for the physical OSD buttons in frustration. That covers a lot of Mac users — designers on studio displays, developers on budget ultrasharp panels, home-office workers on big 4K screens. It's particularly indispensable if you run a multi-monitor setup, because juggling separate OSD menus per screen is a workflow killer.

If you live in clamshell mode (MacBook lid closed, external display only), MonitorControl is essentially mandatory — without it, there is no keyboard path to brightness at all. It's also the right tool if you use a Mac mini or Mac Studio, where there's no built-in display brightness baseline to reference.

Power users running tools like BetterDisplay or lunar — the two closest alternatives — will find MonitorControl lighter and less opinionated. Lunar offers more automation (geo-aware brightness, Sync mode tied to the ambient sensor), and BetterDisplay goes further with virtual displays and HiDPI trickery. MonitorControl is the right call if you want reliable DDC control with zero configuration overhead and no subscription.

What are the best MonitorControl alternatives?

The main alternatives are Lunar (freemium, more automation features, paid Pro), BetterDisplay (paid, adds virtual displays and resolution scaling), and the bare-bones system approach of using DisplayBuddy or even no app at all if your monitor vendor ships a Mac driver. For most users, MonitorControl hits the sweet spot: genuinely free, actively maintained, and covers 90% of use-cases without requiring a credit card or a learning curve.

How does MonitorControl compare to Lunar?

Lunar is the feature-richest option in this space — it can modulate brightness based on time of day, your MacBook's built-in light sensor, or even the dominant colour of the content on screen. That power comes with a paywall for the good stuff and a heavier preference pane. MonitorControl matches Lunar on the core DDC path and keyboard integration, ships zero bloat, and costs nothing. If you need adaptive brightness curves and are happy to pay, Lunar wins on features. If you want set-it-and-forget-it keyboard control for free, MonitorControl is the better choice.