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16

Can I turn off my laptop monitor manually and instantly with just a click or a simple terminal command? I just want to turn off my monitor not locking my machine. There is no dedicated turn off monitor button on my machine.

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up vote 41 down vote accepted

You can by using the preferences command for X server (http://systembash.com/content/how-to-turn-off-your-monitor-via-command-line-in-ubuntu/)

  • To turn off the monitor $ xset dpms force off
  • To turn on the monitor $ xset dpms force on

Pressing a key or moving the mouse will also switch the monitor on if it has been turned off. You can assign the command to a key if you like using shortcuts.

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1  
It works, thanks.. I'm just wondering, can I make it to slowly fade off just like when my computer about to sleep? – Nur Feb 12 '13 at 17:25
    
It would be nice @DavidAshford – Nur Feb 13 '13 at 3:29
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Is there a way to use this commant with locking my screen? When I lock my screen my monitors don't turn off, just go black. I want to save power by turning them off while also locking my session. Any ideas? – Felipe Sep 18 '13 at 19:15
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+1; Just a note that this solution isn't unity specific and you can happily use it on any DE. – mreq Oct 29 '13 at 13:07
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xset dpms force standby seems to be more reliable and doesn't need the sleep 1 ; xset dpms force off trick. – Alan Thompson Sep 17 '15 at 3:59
up vote 15 down vote

To add on to the other answer, I found that when I entered xset dpms force off and pressed the Enter key, my screen would turn off and turn on again. By running the command below, I was able to get the screen to turn off without turning on.

sleep 3; xset dpms force off
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Much better ! The plain way is not reliable (on Kubuntu). – Alan Thompson Sep 17 '15 at 3:54
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Does not work in 16.04 – Darkside Aug 28 '16 at 16:01
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@darkside on ubuntu 16.04 it works – Herrgott Oct 23 '17 at 2:03
up vote 0 down vote

I found the xset dpms force off command works well. However, when assigning a hot key to this command, I ran into trouble: my screen would turn off and back on again.

I found the reason for this was the hot key combo I was using for no particular reason. I discovered the hot key combo "Mod2+Mod4+Super+Hyper+Left shift" assigned to the xset dpms force off command turns the screen off and the screen will not turn on again until a key is pressed or the mouse is used. Exactly what I wanted! That hot key combo is simply the Super (Windows key) used in conjunction with the left shift key. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 and this is working on my systems.

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up vote 0 down vote

Just to add more options... You can run

xrandr --output <DISPLAY_NAME> --brightness 0

To determine your display name, simply runxrandr. It will provide you with information on connected displays, so you can actually turn on and off any of them

Beware though, after running this command, you won't be able to turn your screen on by moving your mouse or using a keyboard. You will have to either use second monitor or blindly type 

xrandr --output <DISPLAY_NAME> --brightness 1

So, X RandR provides you with better control over your screens, but it does what it does. It can also be used for other things, like changing resolution, orientation, rate, etc. It is also very easy to run it inside scripts. If you want, you can write a script to make your screen nicely fade to black. Brightness parameter can take fractions

More on X RandR

Example of X RandR script, bind to Fn keys

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Note that --brightness option doesn't actually affect hardware, it only colorizes screen in such way that it becomes dark. Quote from the manual on --brightness option: However, this is a software only modification, if your hardware has support to actually change the brightness, you will probably prefer to use xbacklight. – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Dec 6 '17 at 19:13

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