Since the release of the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Apple M1 CPUs, everyone appears to be raving about the new processor and its features. Apple largely maintained the same design for the new MacBooks, but there is one significant modification. In their place, the Cupertino giant added shortcuts for Spotlight, DND, and Dictation. The shortcut buttons for changing keyboard brightness were eliminated. So, if you’re wondering how to alter the brightness of the keyboard lighting on the M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, here’s how.
Change Keyboard Brightness in M1 MacBook Air and Pro
Apple deleted the shortcut keys, but there are still a lot of methods to change the keyboard brightness on the new M1 MacBook. In this article, we’ll go through all the ways to customise your MacBook Air M1’s keyboard illumination and toggle it on and off. Additionally, we’ll explain how to re-add those shortcut keys to your new Mac.
As always, you may get to any specific section of this article using the table of contents below.
Adjust Keyboard Brightness with Control Center
The Control Center in macOS Big Sur is the most straightforward way to modify the brightness on your Mac keyboard. What you must do is as follows.
- Click on the Control Center icon in the menu bar.
- Click on Keyboard Brightness
- Drag the slider to adjust keyboard brightness on your M1 MacBook Air/Pro.
Add Keyboard Brightness Setting to Menu Bar
It could be too much work to use the Control Center to change the keyboard brightness on your Apple laptop every time you need to. The brightness option can then be added to your Mac’s menu bar.
- Click on the Control Center icon in the menu bar.
- Drag and drop the Keyboard Brightness option to your menu bar.
As an alternative, you can enable the checkbox next to Show in Menu Bar in System Preferences by going to Dock and Menu Bar -> Keyboard Brightness.
Instead of constantly visiting the Control Center, you can now alter the keyboard brightness by clicking on this button in the menu bar.
Get Keyboard Brightness Shortcut Keys Back on M1 MacBook
You may also change the brightness on your Mac by just pressing the keyboard shortcut keys. This, however, involves some effort. What you must do is as follows.
- Install Karabiner Elements (Free) on your MacBook and run it.
- Your Mac might show you an error saying System Extension Blocked . Click on Open Security Preferences .
- Click the lock icon and enter your password or use Touch ID to unlock.
- Now, click on Allow .
- Launch the Karabiner Elements app and click on Open Security and Privacy System Preferences button in the pop-up that shows up on screen.
- Enable both karabiner_observer and karabiner_grabber .
- Quit Karabiner Elements and relaunch it. Click on Function Keys in the top navbar. You ll see it has changed F5 and F6 to decreasing and increasing illumination of your Mac keyboard.
On your M1 MacBook, you can now change the keyboard brightness by pressing F5 or F6. In addition, Karabiner automatically converts the F4 key to Launchpad. From the Karabiner Elements programme, you may quickly modify that if you’d prefer to keep it for Spotlight only.
Note: You can pretty much remap your Mac keyboard whatever you’d like using Karabiner Elements.
Disable Auto Brightness for Keyboard Backlight
By default, your Mac will automatically change the keyboard’s brightness in dimly lit areas. This is beneficial for extending battery life, but if you don’t want it to happen automatically, here’s how to turn off the feature.
- Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard.
- Uncheck the box that says Adjust keyboard brightness in low light .
There it is. You will no longer have your Mac’s keyboard brightness adjusted for you automatically.
Easily Adjust the Keyboard Brightness on Your Mac
These are the techniques you can use to modify the brightness of the keyboard on your brand-new M1 MacBook. Personally, I think utilising Karabiner Elements is a bit excessive, but that’s only because I don’t frequently change the keyboard’s brightness. For me, changing the keyboard brightness in Control Center works well.
How are you doing? Do you approve of the new way to change the laptop keyboard’s brightness? Or would you rather use the specific shortcut keys? Please tell us in the comments.