DisplayToggle 🌙

A macOS menu bar utility to disconnect the built-in display on MacBook laptops when using an external monitor.

Features

• Toggle built-in display — Disconnect/reconnect the MacBook's built-in LCD with one click
• Auto BlackOut — Automatically disconnects the built-in display when an external display is detected, and reconnects when the external is removed
• Emergency hotkey — Press Cmd+Alt+Shift+1 to toggle the display (requires Accessibility permission)
• State persistence — Remembers the display state across restarts
• DisplayLink detection — Warns if DisplayLink drivers are active, as they may conflict

Requirements

• macOS 13+ (Ventura or later)
• Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) or Intel MacBook
• An external display connected to use the disconnect feature

Installation

make install

This builds the app and installs it to ~/Applications/DisplayToggle.app.

Usage

1. Launch DisplayToggle — it appears as a 🌙 icon in the menu bar
2. Click the icon and select Disconnect Built-in Display
3. To reconnect, click the icon again and select Reconnect Built-in Display
4. Enable Auto BlackOut for automatic management when connecting/disconnecting external displays

Build from source

make build      # Build the binary
make bundle     # Build + create .app bundle
make run        # Build + bundle + launch

How it works

DisplayToggle uses a private SkyLight API (CGSConfigureDisplayEnabled) to remove the built-in display from the compositing pipeline, which effectively turns it off without putting the MacBook to sleep. This is the same approach used by tools like Lunar and mac-display-toggle.

License

Personal utility — provided as-is.