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CLI Open source 222 installs/mo

brightness for Mac

Change macOS display brightness from the command-line

Quick answer: brightness is a system utility for macOS. Install it with brew install brightness. It is distributed under the BSD-2-Clause licence. It has 222 Homebrew installs in the last 30 days.

What brightness is

brightness is a system utility for macOS: change macOS display brightness from the command-line.

It is distributed as a Homebrew formula, which builds or pours a binary and puts it on your PATH. The project is open source and lives at https://github.com/nriley/brightness.

How to install brightness

  1. Open Terminal (press ⌘ + Space and type “Terminal”).
  2. If Homebrew is not installed yet, run the installer below once.
  3. Run brew install brightness.

Homebrew installer, if you need it:

Prefer a graphical installer? Download it from the official site. MacPicks never hosts or mirrors binaries — the Homebrew command always pulls from the vendor's own release.

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Frequently asked questions

How do I install brightness on Mac?

Run brew install brightness in Terminal. This requires Homebrew; if you do not have it, install it first with the command below.

Is brightness open source?

Yes — Homebrew distributes it under the BSD-2-Clause licence.

Does brightness run on Apple silicon?

Homebrew publishes this formula for macOS. If upstream does not ship an Apple silicon build, Rosetta 2 handles the Intel binary.

How popular is brightness?

It was installed 222 times in the last 30 days according to Homebrew analytics, ranking #2367 in this catalogue.

What version of brightness is current?

The latest packaged version is 1.2.