Can I turn the display off without putting the computer to sleep?

Solution 1:

You can use Hot Corners to put your display to sleep instantly. This article on OSXDaily walks through the steps, Quickly Sleep the Display in Mac OS X with a Hot Corner.

1. Launch System Preferences and click on “Mission Control”
2. Click on “Hot Corners…” in the lower left corner
3. Set the screen corners you want to use to “Put Display to Sleep”
4. Close out of System Preferences and test the Hot Corner by sliding your cursor into that screens corner

Solution 2:

I believe you can also use the short cut CTRL + Shift + Eject. On a Retina MacBook Pro there is no eject key, if I recall you use the power button instead?

Someone correct me I'm wrong.

Also the lowest brightness setting turns the screen off (again, someone correct me I'm wrong).

Solution 3:

I used Shift ⇧ + Control ⌃ + Power button for putting my displays to sleep. Please check Mac keyboard shortcuts.

Solution 4:

If your keyboard has an eject or power key, you can press control-shift-eject or control-shift-power. control-shift-power only works in 10.8 and later though.

Another option in 10.9 and later is to run

pmset displaysleep now

If your keyboard does not have an eject key or a power key, you can assign a shortcut to pmset displaysleep now with for example Alfred:

Or use a private.xml like this with KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>control_shift_esc_to_display_sleep</name>
    <identifier>control_shift_esc_to_display_sleep</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::ESCAPE, VK_CONTROL | VK_SHIFT | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::VK_CONSUMERKEY_EJECT, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L | ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L</autogen>
  </item>
</root>