One of the things that differentiate a laptop from a desktop computer is that the latter contains a separate display screen with dedicated control buttons for display settings as well as a button responsible for turning it on and off, which is important when temporarily leaving the desk. This feature is missing in laptops as they come with an integrated screen that does not have dedicated control buttons or even a single button whose function is to turn off the screen, forcing the user who needs to temporarily leave to keep the system in sleep mode or close the screen.
However, let’s review below some easy ways that help you temporarily turn off the laptop screen without the need to shut down the device. This will save a lot of battery power since the screen is the most energy-consuming component of the laptop.
The article has been updated on 21 / 4 / 2023
First Method: Change the Power Button to Screen Off Button
By default, pressing the power button while the laptop is in use will either shut down the device or activate sleep mode on other devices. However, you can change this action so that when you press the power button, it turns off the laptop screen instead of shutting down the device or entering sleep mode. This method can be easily applied and is effective on most laptops.
All you have to do is right-click on the battery icon in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen (next to the clock), then from the menu that appears, click on “Power Options” to open the power settings window, and on the left side you will find an option called “Choose what the power buttons” so click on it. Then press the dropdown menu in front of “When I press the power button” and choose in both (On battery and Plugged in) “Turn off the display” option as shown in the image above.
Once you are done, click the Save changes button to save the new settings. From now on, whenever you want to turn off the laptop screen, simply press the power button once and the screen will turn off immediately. To turn it back on, press the power button, move the mouse pointer, or press any key on the keyboard.
Also Read: How to Adjust Screen Brightness for Each Program Individually in Windows
Second Method: Shorten the Automatic Screen Turn-Off Delay
Windows automatically turns off the laptop screen after 5 minutes of inactivity if the charger is not connected, and for 15 minutes if the charger is connected. Therefore, if you are looking to use another method instead of reassigning the power button (the first method), you can shorten this duration so you do not have to manually turn off the screen. To do this, open the Settings app from the Start menu or by pressing the Win + I keys together, then go to the “System” section and from the sidebar, click on “Power & Sleep”. Now in the “Screen” section, select the shortest available duration from the “On battery power” and “When plugged in” menus, knowing that the shortest duration is one minute, so if you stop moving the mouse pointer or pressing any key on the keyboard for a minute, the screen will turn off immediately.
Third Method: Using Display Power Off Tool
If the previous method fails to achieve the desired result, and you also do not want to tamper with the power settings in Windows, you can use an external tool to help you turn off the laptop screen temporarily. Let me tell you that there are many tools designed specifically for this function, but if you are looking for a quick, easy, and simple tool, I suggest you use the Display Power Off Utility, a very small tool that works on laptop screens and desktop computer screens. The idea of the tool is to provide a simple shortcut that turns off the screen when needed to reduce power consumption. All you have to do after downloading the tool is to unzip the main folder to extract the driver files.
When you need to turn off the screen temporarily, double-click on the first file doff.exe, while the second file with the same name activates the screensaver immediately. However, to streamline the tool, you can place it on the taskbar for easy access, so double-click on the file doff-tray and a small icon will appear on the taskbar (next to the clock). Now whenever you want to turn off the laptop screen, all you have to do is right-click on that icon and select “Turn Off Display”.
Fourth Method: Create a Keyboard Shortcut to Turn Off the Screen
The last and effective method according to our experience is to use a simple tool called NirCmd to create a keyboard shortcut that turns off the laptop screen temporarily by pressing the keys Ctrl + Shift + T together, or customize this shortcut and make it execute by pressing a single key if the keyboard has calculator keys. So if you want to try this method, just follow the steps we have outlined in the article on how to create a keyboard shortcut in Windows to turn off the computer screen.
