How to (almost) turn off the screen on your iMac

[Attip]

Hey guys,

If nothing have changed since I last botted (around 3 months ago), it's still a problem for people with iMacs to bot overnight, due to the heavily lit screen. This is my solution to the problem, and I know it isn't perfect, but it's certainly better than not doing anything.

1) Delete / move all the files from your iMac's desktop.
2) Set this picture, as your background: (any black picture will work)
3) Go to System preferences --> Dock and check the auto hide dock option
4) Turn the backlight all the way down, with the keys on your keyboard (f1 key)
5) Start Wow and Pocketgnome
6) hide Wow, Pocketgnome, and any other application you have open (cmd+h)

As stated before, I know this isn't a perfect way, but it works for me. The screen barely lights up, and certainly doesn't light up my whole room, like it used to do.

I hope you can use this guide

[Sofaking]

I've got a long post about this too. Thanks.

other solutions are the free addon called Shades,
and setting the bot and wow to run from another username, then going back to your username and sleeping the screen

[Maethor]

At the risk of sounding like an idiotard, can't you just use the F1 key (screen brightness) to turn the backlighting off completely?

[Irony]

Some iMac models have the nasty issue that they'll leave the backlight on on a very low setting, no matter what. It's very annoying when you sleep in the same room

And nothing helps, no free software, not the use of F1 (or fn+F1) or setting this as a screensaver/background.

Programs that actually turn off the backlight have are subject to a specific quirk of OSX: It wakes up whenever PG simulates a mouse interaction.

[eti-enne02]

you can also put a black background, lower the screen's brightness to the lowest and hit f11 to hide all the windows in the side of the screen

[daemonic666]

I have a new Imac 27" I5 and i use shades...the monitor will turn totally black but the leds will not shutdown...what does it mean ?

Imac + 0 backlight : 150 watt

Imac + monitor completely off = 110 watt


Damn a lot of watt We need a solution !

[Irony]

There is none.

It's a limitation of that model

[leothar]

Another way to get a black screen with minimal effort for us with old iMacs:

1. Turn down your brightness.
2. Open a movie that has a black frame in the beginning (most movies do) with QuickTime.
3. Enter fullscreen in QuickTime. This will hide the menu bar and the Dock, giving you a totally black screen.