Native menubar · Apple Silicon

External brightness,
on the keys.

A macOS menubar app that drives your external monitor's brightness over DDC/CI — the F1/F2 keys follow the display you're working on, ⌥F1 blacks it out, ⌥F2 brings it back. No window, no Dock icon, no telemetry.

Download for macOS
Free · v0.1.0 · Apple Silicon · macOS 14+
1.5 MB · Developer ID, notarized
Updates itself from here — you'll never download this page twice.
Cold start
<300ms
from launch to the menubar icon
Key → change
<50ms
one I²C write, off the main thread
Idle CPU
~0%
event-driven, never polling
What's inside

Brightness over DDC

A slider per external display in the menubar, written straight to the panel over I²C (VCP 0x10).

F1

F1/F2, by focus

The brightness keys follow the display your active window is on. The built-in keeps its native keys.

Instant blackout

⌥F1 drops the panel to true black via DDC standby — below the backlight floor; ⌥F2 wakes it to full.

On / off

Send an external monitor to standby and back from the menubar — no reaching for the buttons.

Built-in too

The MacBook display shows up in the same panel, driven through DisplayServices.

Over-the-air updates

Signed and notarized, delivered to the app. Click once and you're current.

Download MonitorTracker
Requires an Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later. External control needs a DDC/CI-capable monitor.