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Is there a way to adjust MacBook Pro's Touch Bar brightness?

MacBook Pro, 13", 2016, macOS Sierra 10.12.6

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4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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You can't. It may automatically adjust based on external lighting conditions if the "Adjust keyboard brightness in low light" option is on in System Preferences>Keyboard, but I haven't experimented to confirm this.

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    It automatically adjusts itself even if "Adjust keyboard brightness in low light" is turned off. I can't find any way to stop this.
    – Josh Lee
    Commented Jan 26, 2018 at 19:41
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    FWIW, There is an (potentially useful) alternative answer in this suggested edit, which presumably will be rejected as it clearly conflicts with the OP's intent of the original answer. That suggested edit should really be posted as a new answer
    – Greenonline
    Commented May 22 at 21:29
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You can put a small sticker, or something similar, over the ambient light sensor on a Touch Bar equipped Mac to set the brightness to its lowest setting.

Note that the ambient light sensor is the smaller circle beside the camera's circle. You can test it out by putting your finger over just the smaller circle and noticing the Touch Bar's brightness reduce.

enter image description here

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    So, i put a sliding camera block on my camera not knowing the ambient light sensor was there. It dimmed the touchbar to the point of unusability. Thanks for answering this though because it might have been longer for me to figure out what was doing it. I don't know how true the "they can use your camera to spy on you" statements are although if snowden is right then at the level of NSA and CIA it's very true
    – billpennock
    Commented Feb 21, 2020 at 21:18
  • MBP2020 only has a camera, no light sensor. Covering the camera does nothing.
    – lenooh
    Commented Aug 28, 2020 at 6:56
  • @lenooh Of course it does, every MacBook model has for a decade, it’s listed in the specs on apple.com/uk/macbook-pro-13/specs
    – grg ♦
    Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 8:50
  • @grg: the spec says it's in the keyboard. The top frame only has a camera, not a light sensor.
    – lenooh
    Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 17:09
  • @lenooh 1) Your original comment wasn't questioning the location, claiming the MBP2020 has no light sensor at all, not that it's in a different location? 2) The spec doesn't say a location. The keyboard is opaque plastic with an aluminium frame that you regularly cover with your hands; the ambient light sensor is at the top of the display as it always has been.
    – grg ♦
    Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 17:54
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So far, I agree the answer is "you can't".

Here's what I've been able to determine about how the touchbar brightness controlled.

The ambient light sensor for the keyboard and touchbar are located under the top cover. There are two of them – one located behind each (left and right) speaker grill. I believe, they've been located there as far back as there have been keyboard backlights on MacBooks.

An easy way to check this out for yourself (and characterize the behavior of the touchbar brightness vs ambient light) is to first, turn off "Automatically adjust brightness" option in the Display preference pane*, then, in a dimly lit room, shine a flashlight over either one or both of the speaker grills. There is a bit of a delay, but afterwards, you'll see the touchbar go to its full brightness. If automatic keyboard brightness is enabled, you'll see the keyboard backlight get brighter (though with less delay).

Bottom line, at least as of the latest Mojave beta and the latest 2018 MBP (15"), there is no apparent way to control the touchbar brightness. Until I discovered this, I was a bit frustrated trying to control it via either the manual setting or whatever the system was trying to do when set to automatic control.

*The reason that I suggest disabling the automatic control for the display is it will get rather bright in response to the flashlight being waved around and just confuse trying to see what the touchbar and keyboard are doing. The ambient sensor for the display is the one near the camera at the top of the display.

Edit: Damn. I must've had the flashlight up too far above the top cover, and light was leaking to the sensor up in the lid. The TouchBar's brightness is indeed controlled using that sensor. I kind of shot myself in the foot by disabling the display auto adjust feature and thought there couldn't be any input from bezel sensor.

Yes, and the keyboard backlight too. But, I do know the original backlit keyboards did use sensors behind the grills. I've seen 'em. They're real. Really.

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    So, since you know now that most of the answer is wrong, probably you should start it with a very clear warning (if not plain deleting it)
    – hmijail
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 2:55
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shine a flashlight over either one or both of the speaker grills.

this is unfortunately untrue from my own experimentation on a MBP 15,5 (2019 13") the light sensor for keyboard and Touch Bar is located next to the camera on your display bezel.

There is no way to control the brightness of the Touch Bar, however, to make the thing more apparent you should reduce the brightness of your display and keyboard backlight. this will allow your pupils to dilate and let in more light. this only works in the dark though...

If I manage to find something that will help (In the form of a program) I will post it here as I would personally like to adjust the Touch Bar brightness independently of the display and keyboard, as sometimes I am in a dark room and have the display all the way up, so can't see the Touch Bar...

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