How to Turn off the Monitor Using Keyboard Shortcuts in Windows

Turning off the screen/monitor in a laptop or desktop can serve the purpose of saving power as well as maintaining privacy as well to an extent. The security outlook is very much relevant in a professional environment. Although locking the desktop or laptop can serve the purpose of data security, there might be instances where an individual might also want to elude unwanted or unauthorized eyes from the lock screen. In this post, we will share how to turn off the monitor using keyboard shortcuts in Windows.

How to Turn off the Monitor Using Keyboard Shortcuts in Windows

This section will look at multiple methods to turn off monitors using keyboard shortcuts as quickly as possible to protect your privacy. Here’s what’s covered:

1. Using Windows Power Management
2. Using Turnoffscreen.bat
3. Using Display Power Off Utility
4. Using Keyboard Hotkeys
5. Push Off Monitor using a script
6. Nircmd monitor off

In Windows, there happens to be a keyboard shortcut in place for every action that can be performed by clicking the mouse. However, many of us are ignorant of these shortcuts except for the very commonly used ones. Power or energy saving can also be facilitated by turning off the monitor display while it’s not in use.

These Windows shortcuts turn off screen work for Windows 11, Windows 10, and other versions of Windows.

1] Using Windows Power Management

Using the Windows Power Management options in the control panel, you can choose what pressing the power button does on your Windows computer. You can assign the power button with various actions, including turning off your display, sleeping, hibernating, etc. Some Windows laptops include a shortcut button or switch to turn off the monitor.

Here’s how to do it:

• Search Choose a power plan in Windows search.
• From the left pane, click on Choose what power buttons Do option.
• Now, on the next page, you’ll see two settings, On Battery and Plugged In. For the option, When I press the power button, select Turn Off The Display under both the On Battery And Plugged in sections.
• Now, click on the Save Changes button to save the settings. You can now turn off your display by pressing the power button.

2] Using TurnOffscreen.Bat

Turnoffscreen.Bat is a script initially created by the devs at Microsoft to turn off the display with a few clicks. This script used to be hosted at Microsoft Technet but is now hosted at Github by an independent developer. We’ve tested the script. It works well and is entirely safe to use. Here’s how to use it.

• Download and extract the Zip file for the script from GitHub. LKook for Download ZIP button at the top-right
• Once extracted, you’ll see a Turn Off Screen file in the folder.
• Now, right-click the file from the open context menu, hover over the Send to option, and then select the Desktop (Create shortcut) option.
• This will create a desktop shortcut for the file. Now, you can use the desktop shortcut to turn off your screen or assign a Keyboard shortcut key.
• To assign a Keyboard shortcut to any shortcut file, right-click the Shortcut and select Properties from the context menu.
• In the Properties Window, open the Shortcut Tab. Look for the Shortcut key option in the tab and click on the text field next to it.
• Once clicked, press the keyboard shortcut you wish to assign to the file.
• Click on Apply, and the shortcut is assigned.

3] Using Display Power Off Utility

Display Power Off Utility is an open-source utility hosted on Sourceforge that serves the same purpose as Turnofscreen.Bat. But this utility can also be configured to sit in your system tray. Here’s how to use it:

• Download and extract the Display Power Off Utility Zip file.
• In the extracted folder, you’ll see numerous files. We have to work with three: doff application, doff screensaver, and doff-tray. T
  • Doff application directly turns off the screen
  • Doff screensaver opens a black screensaver,
  • and Doff tray enables an option in the system tray to turn off the display by double-clicking.
• Now, you can add doff application or doff screensaver to the desktop and assign a keyboard shortcut to them. Or use the system tray utility to turn off the screen. Follow the steps in the previous section to assign a keyboard shortcut to an application.

4] Using Keyboard Hotkeys

Windows has no hotkey to turn off the display directly, but several laptop and keyboard manufacturers provide this functionality. The placement of the key may vary according to the manufacturer. Check your F1-12 keys for a screen-off symbol and test the key out. To use the key (If present), press the Fn key to override the functionality of the F keys and use the hotkey.

5] Push Off Monitor

My laptop has no unique key to turn the display off, so I used this portable software— Push Off Monitor. You can download and install the program.

Once installed, launch the program by searching it from the Start Menu or the System Tray icon, i.e., near the clock.

If you press SHIFT + F1, it turns the monitor display off. While the display is turned off, everything else works. The best way to understand is to play music on your computer and then press the hotkey. You will still be able to hear the music.

The software uses Auto Hot Key Scripts, which it executes when using the shortcut. The first part of the code turns off the screen, while the second part is where it captures the input when you press SHIFT + F1.

;[Settings]
;button=F1 Hotkey
;modifier=Shift +=Shift ^=Ctrl !=Alt #=Win Hotkey to turn off the screen

[Settings]
button=F1
modifier=Shift

Download Turn off monitor from here

6] Nircmd Monitor off

NirCmd is a small command-line utility that allows you to do practical tasks without displaying any user interface. One of the features is to turn off the monitor. So if you run nircmd.exe monitor off in the Command Prompt, it will turn off the monitor.

Once you download the file, extract it. Locate nircmd.exe in the nircmd folder, and double-click to launch it. You may need admin privilege for the copy to work. You can right-click on the program and launch it with admin privileges.

It will open a small pop-up window with the option to extract it to the Windows directory so you can run it from the command line if you wish.

Since we are looking for a shortcut, you need to manually create one shortcut which can be executed using a hotkey. We suggest using the Alias Manager program to do it or follow the steps below:

• Right-click on an empty place on the desktop, and choose to create a shortcut.
• Right-click on the desktop, and then select New > Shortcut.
• Use the browse button to locate the nircmd.exe. Make sure to add the extra command so it looks similar to the path below:

"C:\<path>\nircmd.exe" cmdwait 2000 monitor off

• Save it on the desktop.
• The next step is to add a hotkey to the shortcut. Right-click on the shortcut and click on properties.
• Switch to the Shortcut tab, then press the keys you want to use as Shortcut.

When you click the shortcut, the monitor will turn off the display within 2 seconds. You can remove cmdwait 2000 to turn off the monitor instantly.

Conclusion:

While you can always lock your computer using a WIN + L, which will, in turn, turn off the display, this article reviewed ways to turn off the monitor using a keyboard shortcut in Windows. Using these methods, this can be prevented. We hope you found the article to be helpful. Please make sure that you share it with everyone.