I have a Element Hub (which I love) and 2 monitors hooked up to my 14" MBP. AT night, I close the laptop, and the monitors stay on. Is there a way to have them turn off when the lid is closed? I hate unplugging the computer from the hub every night.
I am still not used to Ventura Settings, and it seems that everyone online wants to keep monitors on when lid closed. I’m an outlier. TIA.
The issue is that you want to close the lid without putting the Mac to sleep first? There’s a third party script I’m aware of that sleeps your laptop when it detects the lid is closed. You can install it via homebrew.
Otherwise, I think you just need to manually sleep your computer before you close the lid, and your screens should power off shortly afterwards. You can make the laptop sleep with a hot corner, an Alfred/Raycast command, etc. Hot Corners are at the bottom of Desktop & Dock in System Settings (or you can just search.)
I think that’s a setting? My displays go to sleep almost immediately after I lock my comptuers. For the world of me though, I can’t find it.
Also, welcome to the forum!
Probably not the answer you’re looking for, but have you checked if your monitors have an off switch? I use my MBP in clamshell mode, and my monitor stays on constantly if I don’t interfere. On my Samsung monitor it’s “click, down, click” to turn off with its menu button (and one click to turn back on). It takes 1 second and solves my problem.
Instead of closing the MBP why not just set the power settings to turn all the displays off after some period of inactivity? I almost never sleep my Macs since I have stuff running all the time.
Thanks to all for the great suggestions (and for not making me feel stupid for asking)!
The “Sleep” suggestion worked well–will try the script later. This morning, I opened my MBP and it turned on as usual, but the monitors stayed asleep. I restarted the laptop, and they popped to life. Maybe I’ll just turn them off manually at night and on in the morning as suggested. Or, as glenthompson suggests, will futz with the power settings.
Thanks again all! You have restored my faith in Apple (…he says, eyeing his SE/30, Classic, and Powerbook 520).
I spent years using MBPs to drive external displays through Thunderbolt docks, and getting the displays to respond correctly to wake up events (waking the Mac, re-docking, booting, or just after the inactivity timeout) was never something that consistently worked without hassle.
Those same displays and the most recent dock are now being used by a Mini (last Intel model) and work flawlessly. This problem seems to be widespread; I don’t know what it is about MacBook (Pro?)s that makes external displays such an issue.