Turn monitor display off with keyboard shortcut in Windows 10

While you can always lock your computer using a WIN + L, which will, in turn, turn off the display, but here is something even more useful. A keyboard shortcut to turn off the monitor display. It will not lock down the computer, but only turn off the screen.

Turn monitor display off with keyboard shortcut in Windows 10

There are two ways of doing it, but both of them use the software, and they are free.

  1. Push Off Monitor
  2. Nircmd monitor off

While the first one is straight forward, the second will need a bit of work. So choose accordingly.

1] Push Off Monitor

On my laptop, there is no unique key to turn the display off, so I ended up using this portable software— Push Off Monitor. You can download and install the program. Push off monitor from here.

Turn monitor display off

Once installed, launch the program by searching it from the Start Menu or the System Tray icon, i.e., near the clock.

If you press SHIFT + F1, it just turns the monitor display off. While the display is turned off, everything else works. The best way to understand is to play music on your computer, and then press the hotkey. You will still be able to hear the music.

The software uses Auto Hot Key Scripts, which it executes when the user uses the shortcut. The first part of the code turns off the screen, while the second part is where it captures the input when you press SHIFT + F1.

;[Settings]
;button=F1 Hotkey
;modifier=Shift +=Shift ^=Ctrl !=Alt #=Win Hotkey to turn off the screen

[Settings]
button=F1
modifier=Shift

Download Turn off monitor from here

2] Nircmd monitor off

NirCmd is a small command-line utility that allows you to do some useful tasks without displaying any user interface. One of the features is to turn off the monitor. So if you run nircmd.exe monitor off in the Command Prompt, it will turn off the monitor.

Once you download the file, extract it. Locate nircmd.exe in the nircmd folder, and double-click to launch it. You may need admin privilege for the copy to work. You can right-click on the program and launch it with admin privileges.

It will open a small pop-up window with the option to extract it to the Windows directory so you can run it from the command line if you wish.

Turn monitor display off with keyboard shortcut in Windows 10

Since we are looking for a shortcut, you need to manually create one shortcut which can be executed using a hotkey. We suggest using the Alias Manager program to do it or follow the steps below:

nircmd shortcut hotkey

  • Right-click on an empty place on the desktop, and choose to create a shortcut.
  • Right-click on the desktop, and then select New > Shortcut.
  • Use the browse button to locate the nircmd.exe. Make sure to add the extra command, so it looks similar to the path below:
"C:\<path>\nircmd.exe" cmdwait 2000 monitor off
  • Save it on the desktop.
  • The next step is to add a hotkey to the shortcut. Right-click on the shortcut and click on properties.
  • Switch to Shortcut tab, and then use then press the keys you want to use as Shortcut.

When you click on the shortcut, the monitor will turn off the display within 2 seconds. You can remove cmdwait 2000 if you want to turn off the monitor instantly.

7 COMMENTS

  1. Both your answers assume some techno knowledege. Please rewrite both as if talking to a person who knows absolutely nothing about computers. Do not skip any tiny steps that are obvious to you, and necessary, but not obvious to a newby.

  2. For example you could change your wording this way: “After you start the program [portable software— “Push Off Monitor.” Get app here: https://sourceforge.net/directory/os:windows/ ]. It [the icon for the app] sits on the computer’s tray icon [ look at the bottom of your monitor screen and see other icons. It will hopefully go there after download.].

    If you press SHIFT + F1, it just turns the monitor display off. To resume back make mouse or press key movements and then it turns it on. [Hunh???] [Click the mouse or touch any key] [This ability may need to be added by a techno geek, within “device manager” (see control panel). Go to your start icon (window icon) in the lower left of the bar of icons at the bottom of your monitor screen). Type in “device manager” and scroll down to “keyboard” and “mice and also device pointers.” Ask the geek what to do there.)

    [Once you have done this and created a “hotkey”, F key, “short cut” you might want sometime to change the key. If so do the following….]

    It is possible to change the hotkey [define “hotkey”] Right-click on the software icon, and click on Settings. It will open the text box with an option where you can change the button, i.e. F1 to anything else and modifier, i.e. Shift to anything else.
    Download Turn off monitor from here

    To me my additions in the [ ] boxes would clarify your instructions a lot. Correct me if mine are inacurate.

  4. I downloaded and tried the program. It turns my monitor off for about 3 seconds and then comes back on by itself (no key or mouse movement).

  6. My old ASUS laptop had a hotkey function at F9 or 10, simple and easy to use and really nice when you want to keep the machine running but not be burning up the screen. How does this differ? Can we get something like this idea on a non-asus laptop? I have windows 10 pro by the way. Thanks so much.

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