MacOS: change brightness of external monitor (via DuckDuckGo)
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/06/04
Seems this is not an easily accessible built-in feature of MacOS: [Wayback/Archive] macos change brightness of external monitor at DuckDuckGo
Basically there seem to be two apps that are most popular:
- Lunar
- MonitorControl
Lunar is free, but has a fee for some features. MonitorControl is free derived from Lunar, but has less features than the paid Lunar license has and is less often updated.
Both have been developed in Swift and are on GitHub:
- [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – alin23/Lunar: Intelligent adaptive brightness for your external monitors
- [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – MonitorControl/MonitorControl: đź–Ą Control your display’s brightness & volume on your Mac as if it was a native Apple Display. Use Apple Keyboard keys or custom shortcuts. Shows the native macOS OSDs.
Installation through Homebrew:
- [Wayback/Archive] lunar — Homebrew Formulae
$ brew install --cask lunar - [Wayback/Archive] monitorcontrol — Homebrew Formulae
$ brew install --cask monitorcontrol
More links:
- [Wayback/Archive] Lunar – The defacto app for controlling monitor brightness (lifetime license: USD 23)
- [Wayback/Archive] Lunar vs MonitorControl
Via [Wayback/Archive] Brightness Adjustment for external monitors!!! : MacOSBeta
- MonitorControl.4.1.0.dmg
- If you have a problem there is also Lunar, it’s a really good app and DDC/CI control on M1/M2 Macs is possible !
- Nope, DisplayBuddy is made by Siddharth which has no tie to MonitorControl.Maybe you’re thinking of BetterDisplay?That one is made by Istvan Toth, a former Lunar user that went on to port Lunar’s Apple Silicon support to MonitorControl, then created his own app to fill a different niche (HiDPI support on non-4K displays)
- Are there things that Lunar can do that BetterDisplay can’t? I haven’t found a good comparison chart of them and I was hoping you might help with that.
They are very similar, but each app has its defining features.
Lunar is more about automation while BetterDisplay is about fixing DPI.
Here’s what Lunar has and BetterDisplay doesn’t:
- adaptive brightness based on the light sensor or sun position in the sky
- keeping luminance in sync between monitors even if they have different min/max nits
- automatic disconnection of the MacBook screen when connected to a monitor
- a command-line interface
- macOS Shortcuts support
- connecting and disconnecting iPad Sidecar Displays through hotkeys
- App Presets: sets specific brightness/contrast when using specific apps
- brightness scheduling on specific times throughout the day
- auto enabling XDR Brightness in bright sunlight
BetterDisplay has DPI fixing, color fixing for monitors that have the YCbCr problem, creating custom resolutions, creating and streaming virtual screens, EDID rewriting, a more native-like UI, probably other things I don’t know about.
If one needs only the DPI fixing feature of BetterDisplay, it can be used alongside Lunar by configuring these settings.
- if I were to buy Luna Pro now, would I have to pay again for a new license if a new major version is launched?
- No, you would never have to pay anything, all major updates will be free as well
--jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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